PID Control Systems - Integral Control Why Not Use An Integral Controller? Properties Of Integral Controllers Implementing Integral Controllers Integral Control Example You are at: Design Techniques - The PID Family of Controllers - Integral Controllers Click here to return to the Table of Contents
Why Not Use An Integral Controller? An integral controller has one very good quality. An integral controller will normally ensure zero SSE in a control system for step (constant) inputs. An integral controller is not particularly difficult to implement. In an analog system, an integral control system integrates the error signal to generate the control sign signal. al. If the error signal is a voltage, and the control signal is also a voltage, then a proportional controller is just an analog integrator. In a digital control system, an integral control system computes the error from measured output and user input to a program, and integrates the error using some standard integration algorithm, then generates an output/control signal from that integration.
Goals For This Lesson Here's what you need to work toward in this lesson. Given a system in which you want to use integral control, Be able to predict the effect of integral control on SSE. Be able to predict the effect of integral control on stability. Be able to predict the effect of integral integral control on speed of response.
Properties Of Integral Controllers Integral controllers have these properties. The controller integrates the error as shown in the block diagram of an example system below. The integral controller has a transfer function of Ki/s So, the actuating signal (the input to the system being controlled) is proportional to the integral of the error.
We can examine some of the features of integral control using an integral controller. In an integral controller, steady state error should be zero. The system would have to have a zero at the origin to make this claim false. Of course, the closed loop system has to be stable. Integral control has a tendency to make a system slower. slower. We'll talk about why that happens happens shortly. If we think about the root locus for a system with integral control we can note the following. The integral gain, K i, is either the root locus gain, or the root locus gain is proportional to K i. Integral control has a tendency to make a system slower. Consider a typical situation as shown below.
There's a pole at s = 0 from the integral controller. There may be a real pole from the system. The root locus moves to the left from the pole at the origin. Click the green button on the plot to see that. You may want to do a complete analysis of your system before you decide that integral control does give you the response you want. Finally, we should note that integral control changes the order of the system, so a second order system becomes a third order system when you use an integral controller. An proportional controller, on the other hand, does not increase the order of the system. You also need to know how to implement an integral controller if you can achieve system performance specifications with an integral controller. Let's examine a few examples of systems with integral control. We'll use these same example systems we used when we discussed proportional control. We're going to make some standard assumptions about our systems. First of all, in the prototype system configuration, we'll assume H(s) = 1. In other words, we'll always have unity feedback. Here is the system we will use.
The first example is a system with a single pole. We assume that pole to be at s = -1. Here's the root locus for that system after adding an integral controller.
There are now two closed loop poles. The closed loop poles move together and coalesce at s = -0.5, then become complex, with a damping ratio that becomes smaller for larger gain. The system never goes unstable - not for any gain. We can also take a look at the frequency response for this system.
As we increase the gain (The plot is for Ki = 1) the phase margin gets smaller because the phase for the entire system, including controller, starts at -90o, and approaches -180o, for high frequencies. No matter how high the gain gets, the phase margin is always positive. The system never goes unstable - not for any gain. The second example we will discuss is a system with two open loop poles. Here's the root locus. This is the root locus for the original system and is really the root locus you would have using proportional control.
Open loop poles are at -1 and -4. But, we need to add the pole due to the integral controller at s = 0. Here is the root locus of the system with integral control - adding a pole at s = 0.
As the gain increases, the closed loop poles become imaginary, and eventually move into the RHP. This second example illustrates something that happens often with integral control.
Here's the root locus again for the system with proportional control. There's a root locus branch between the poles that splits for higher gains.
With integral control, a pole is added at s = 0, and there is now a branch of the root locus between the pole at s = 0 and the rightmost system pole. There is now a pole constrained between those two poles, and when those poles do break off the axis, they tend to move toward the RHP. The pole constrained between 0 and -1 is slower than any pole you would get using proportional control for the original system. Using proportional control all poles lie to the left of -1. Using integral control there is always a pole to the right of -1, sometimes poles that are unstable.
It is tempting to draw a conclusion, and that conclusion is often right. Here it is. Adding integral control to a system may sacrifice speed of response, and even stability, for the sake of zero SSE. Integral control produces a slower system because of the pole(s) c onstrained to the right of the rightmost pole in the system. It is up to the designer to decide if that is an acceptable tradeoff. It is not an acceptable tradeoff to trade zero SSE for instability. Now, examine the Bode' plot for this system.
At high frequencies, the phase approaches -270 o, when the phase of the integral controller is included. As the gain is increased, the phase margin gets smaller and eventually becomes negative as the system goes unstable. From the examples, there are some interesting things to note. Integral control is not a cure-all. It's best to look at the situation in detail before drawing any conclusion. You will need to examine every other aspect of the system if you use integral control because stability, speed of response and other performance measures will all be affected by using integral control.
Implementing Integral Control Integral control in an analog system is often implemented with operational amplifier circuits. The circuit below is an operational amplilfier integrator that can be used to integrate a signal.
The integrating circuit produces an output voltage given by this expression.
Clearly, this circuit can generate an output voltage that is proportional to an error signal, V 1 - V2, and used as a proportional controller, so that gives us a way to implement integral control analog-fashion. Integral control in a digital system is often implemented in code in some programming language like C. That's the digital version of integral control. To implement integral control you use an approximation to the integral. An approximation that is widely used and easy to implement approximates the integral using rectangular areas as shown in the figure.
The integral computation is updated by adding an area equal to the latest measurement multiplied by the sampling period
Here's a pseudo-code segment that could implement an integral controller. MeasuredOutput = MeasureVolts(instrument); /Measure the output/ Error = DesiredOutput - MeasuredOutput; /Compute Error/ ErrorInt = ErrorInt + DT*(DesiredOutput - MeasuredOutput); VoltsOut = ProportionalGain*ErrorInt; /Compute output voltage/ OutputVoltage(VoltsOut); /Output the control signal/ This code assumes that you have a function - MeasuredOutput - that will measure voltage using an instrument connected to the computer, and can output a voltage with a function - OutputVoltage - that uses another instrument connected to the computer. The pseudo-code segment implements a particular integration algorithm - the Euler Integration Algorithm - and other integration algorithms would have different code and different Z-domain transfer functions. If you want to predict the effect of an integrator on system performance, you will need to have the transfer function for the intgrator. For that, consider the difference equation that the integrator satisfies. ErrorInt = ErrorInt + DT*(DesiredOutput - MeasuredOutput); In other words: ErrorIntk = ErrorIntk-1 + DT*(Errork) This equation assumes that the error is measured/computed, and that the computation for the integral of the error takes place quickly so that the D/A in the system can produce the output quickly. Take the transform of this difference equation to get: ErrorInt[z] = [1/z] ErrorInt[z] + DT*Error[z] so: ErrorInt[z]/Error[z] = DT/(1 - 1/z) = (z DT)/(z - 1) and, this system has a pole added at z = 1, and a zero added at the origin of the z plane.
Let's reflect on the analog and digital implementations of integral controllers. The analog controller would have an integrator transfer function of 1/s. The digital controller would have an integrator transfer function of (z DT)/(z - 1). There is a strong temptation to consider s, in the analog/continuous domain, to be the equivalent of (z - 1)/(z DT) in the digital/sampled domain.That conclusion would only be true if the Euler integration algorithm were the integration algorithm. We would get a different sampled transfer function if we used a different integration algorithm (like trapezoidal integration, for example), but we would probably still get one pole at z = 1.
Example Problem This problem concerns the control of an internal combustion engine that is used to rotate a load. That load is shown in the diagram below as the plant. It's really a rotating load that is connected to the engine. That engine is controlled by a controller, and the speed of rotation is measured with a sensor.
When the motor starts to turn the load, it gradually increases in speed and asymptotically approaches a steady state speed. We're going to model the plant as a first order system to show that. The transfer function model for the load is shown above. The controller also is modelled with a single time constant. When an error is applied to the controller, the engine torque does not change instantaneously. We're going to model the controller with a similar transfer function. That's next. However, the controller for the motor needs a control signal computed by a PID unit. That's shown in the block diagram above.
The transfer function model for the controller is shown below. Now we have to model the sensor. We're going to use the same kind of model again. When the speed changes, the sensor measurement doesn't change instantaneously but rather approaches the steady state measurement asymptotically with time-constant behavior. The transfer function model for the sensor is incorporated in the block diagram below. It is the same kind of model again. When the speed changes, the sensor measurement doesn't change instantaneously but rather approaches the steady state measurement asymptotically with timeconstant behavior.
That completes our model of the system, but now we need some numbers. Here's the numbers we are going to use for this problem. For the engine + load: GL = 1, tL = 2 sec. For the controller: GC = KI (variable), tC = 1 sec. For the sensor: GS = 1, tS = .2 sec. We have some questions. Can the system operate with 5% SSE for a constant input? How quickly will the system respond when we have 5% SSE? How much overshoot does the system exhibit when set for 5% SSE? How sensitive is the system to changes in the gain at 5% SSE? We'll try to go through these questions one-by-one to get some feel for what we can make the system do.
control. (Click here to go to that solution.) Integral control should be able to solve that problem by ensuring 0% SSE. However, to design the system - particularly to choose a gain value for the integral control - will take some analysis. You have two options. Do the analysis in the time domain using root locus methods. Do the analysis in the frequency domain using Nyquist/Bode methods. We'll start by getting a root locus for the system with integral control. That's shown below. There are a few points to note in the locus.
The two branches that start at 0 and -0.5 come together and head toward the right half plane. However, those two branches stay in the left half plane for a while, giving pole locations that would produce very stable responses.
The two branches that start at 0 and -0.5 come together and head toward the right half plane never go very far into the left half plane. That might imply a slow response. It looks as though all of the real parts are to the right of s = -0.2 roughly. That's a five second or longer time constant in the response. We need to examine the response of this system in the time domain. What we can do is pick a gain and compute the response for the system with the given gain. Here's a blow-up of the root locus that shows some of the detail near the origin. It looks like there is a point on the negative real axis at s = -0.2 that gives poles that are furthest into the left half plane. At that point, the root locus gain can be calculated from the product of pole distances, and is given by: KRL = .2x.3x.8x4.8 = .2304 In order to do a simulation to calculate time response for this system, we need to relate the root locus gain to the gain in the system. G(s)H(s) = (2.5Ki) / (s(s + 0.5)(s + 1)(s + 5)) so, KRL = 2.5Ki for KRL = 0.23, 2.5Ki = 0.23, and Ki = 0.23/2.5 = .092 Here is the unit step response for the system with an integral controller (Ki = .092). The response is just about what you expect.
There's no overshoot. The response seems to be within 5% in about 20 sec. With two poles at -0.2 that seems about right. There's no SSE. For a unit step input, the output gets to exactly 1. Is there any thing wrong with this response? The only visible problem is that it is slow. It would be better if it were faster. (On the other hand, maybe you can always say that!) We haven't looked at how the response changes when the system changes, Can we improve the system we have designed? We ought to look at the system response for other gain values. That could have an influence on system performance, and it will give use some inkling of how sensitive the system is to changes in parameters. Here's the system response for a gain that is twice as large as the gain (in blue) we used previously, shown with the original gain.
This system has some overshoot, and has a somewhat shorter settling time, so this is possibly an improvement if the overshoot can be tolerated. Here is the response of our system with a gain half of the original gain shown with the original system.
This system takes considerably longer to respond. Clearly this system is inferior to the original design.
integral control. That's shown below, drawn for Ki = 1. There are a few points to note on this plot.
The -180o crossing occurs at a frequency a little below f = 0.1 Hz. At f = 0.1 Hz, the magnitude is just a few db below zero. It's a stable system, but just barely stable for this gain. Earlier, in our root locus analysis we used a particular value for the gain of the integral controller: Ki = .092 We can adjust the gain of the system to get a better phase margin. Here is a video that permits you to vary the gain and see the resulting phase margin as well as the magnitude and phase plots.
Note the following in that plot. The decibel scale is adjusted so that phase and magnitude can apprear on the same plot. 200 on the vertical scale is really 20 db! Play the video to see how changing the gain changes the phase margin. Now, let us adjust the gain so that we get a reasonable system. We will pick a phase margin arbitrarily, and we will choose 60 o. We can design to that phase margin and then check performance. Now, select the gain to give the phase margin of 60 o. Now, select the gain to give the phase margin of 60 o. Before you continue, mark the gain.
This response was with a sixty degree phase margin. We could relax that somewhat. A higher gain would give a lower phase margin, but we might expect a little faster response. Still this compares reasonably favorably with the response obtained using root locus methods. We aren't going to pursue integral control beyond this point for this particular system. We have a clear idea of what can be done with integral control. We see the limits of what we can do. We have some sense of what happens if the gain within the system changes - either the gain we add, or a gain in the system. If we need this accuracy and we have to have faster response, we're going to have to do something else.
The End That's it for this lesson. You're ready to apply what you know in an integral control system. Links To Related Lessons Other Lessons On PID Controllers Proportional Control Implementing Proportional Control Integral Control General PID Control Material That You Might Want To Review Root locus Frequency analysis The basic lesson on integral control Moving Along - More Advanced Material
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