ME-314 Control Systems

Lecture 1
• Introduction
– Course Outline
– Text Book
– Reference Books
• Nature of Course
• Sources of Information
– Industrial: ‘International Federation of Automatic
Control’ or IFAC (publishes journals Automatica,
Control Engineering Practice etc.)
– Academic: ASME ‘Dynamic Systems and Control
Division’ (publishes Journal of Dynamic Systems,
Measurement, and Control)
– Academic: IEEE ‘Control Systems Society’ (publishes
IEEE Control Systems Magazine and IEEE
Transactions on Control Systems Technology)
• Historical Development
– Prehistoric
– Greeks
– Industrial Revolution
• Steam Engine (Fly Ball Governor, a basic/primitive
automatic control device)
• Control System Definition
– A control system consists of subsystems and
processes (or plants) assembled for the purpose of
controlling the output of the processes.
• For example, in the following diagram a furnace
produces heat as a result of the flow and burning
of fuel to centrally heat a house. In this process,
subsystems called fuel valves and fuel-valve
actuators are used to regulate the temperature by
controlling the heat output from the furnace. Other
subsystems, such as temperature sensors provide
a means to monitor/measure the temperature.
– In its simplest form, a control system provides an
output or response for a given input or stimulus as
shown in the figure below.
• Control System Classifications
– The first class is identified as regulator. Its purpose is
to maintain a physical variable at some fixed value
when there are disturbances e.g. speed-control
system on the ac generators of power utility
companies.
– The second class is identified as servo-mechanism.
This is a control system in which a physical variable is
required to follow (track) some desired time function
e.g. automatic aircraft landing system or a robot arm
designed to follow a required path in space.
• Advantages of Control Systems
– Power Amplification
– Remote Control
– Convenience of Input Form
– Compensation for Disturbances
• Response Characteristics
– Consider a control system for an elevator:
• The input is a step function instructing the elevator
to go to a higher floor i.e. 4th.
• The output is a transient response plus a steady-
state response and has a steady-state error.
• System Configurations
– Open-Loop Systems
An open-loop system like the one below cannot
compensate for any disturbances that add to the
controller’s driving signal or to the process output.
– Closed-Loop (Feedback Control) Systems
A closed-loop system can compensate for
disturbances by measuring the output, comparing it
to the desired output (the input or reference), and
driving the difference towards zero.
• Analysis and Design Objectives
– Transient Response: must meet certain criteria or
requirements (i.e. any excessive time delay can
cause uneasiness among users of the system and
also limitations imposed by the physical
construction/geometry/design of the system being
controlled).
– Steady-State Response: must resemble the input with
less and less steady state error.
– Stability: As total response = natural response +
forced response, so for a linear control system to be
stable the natural response must eventually approach
zero thus leaving the forced response only, or
oscillate.
• Natural response describes the way in which a
system dissipates or stores energy. The form or
nature of this response is dependent only on the
system and not the input. The form or nature of the
forced response is dependent on the input. If the
natural response grows without bound, the system
is no longer controlled, this condition is called
instability.
– Other Considerations
• Hardware limitations
• Finances
• Robust Design
– In contrast to robust design where all
parameter changes are taken care of during the
operation of any actual (time varying) system,
linear time invariant (LTI) systems are usually
selected for analysis due to their simplicity.
• Reading Assignment
– Text Book / Chapter 1 / Topics 1.1 to 1.5.