CONTROL SYSTEMS DESIGN

INTRODUCTION TO

CONTROLLERS AND COMPENSATORS

By
GLS Sandhya
CONTROLLERS
TWO POSITION OR ON/OFF CONTROLLER
PROPORTIONAL CONTROLLER
• From the equation (2) we can conclude that the proportional
controller amplifies the error signal by an amount Kp. Also the
introduction of the controller on the system increases the loop gain
by an amount Kp.
• The drawback in P-controller is that it leads to a constant steady state
error.
Examples of electronic P-controller
The proportional controller can be realized by an amplifier with
adjustable gain. Either the non inverting or the inverting operational
amplifier followed by a sign changer will work as a proportional
controller. The op-amp proportional controller is shown in fig
ANALYSIS OF P-CONTROLLER for fig 1
ANALYSIS OF P-CONTROLLER for fig 2
INTEGRAL CONTROLLER
Analysis of I-Controller for fig:7
DERIVATIVE CONTROLLER
•The derivative control acts on rate of change of error and not on the
actual error signal.
•The derivative control action is effective only during transient periods
and so it does not produce corrective measures for any constant error.
Hence the derivative controller is never used alone, but it is employed in
association with proportional and integral controllers.

➢We never use derivative controllers alone. It should be used in

combinations with other modes of controllers because of its few
disadvantages which are written below:
1. It never improves the steady state error.
2. It produces saturation effects and also amplifies the noise signals
produced in the system.
➢The major advantage of a derivative controller is that it improves the
transient response of the system.

❖The derivative control action is adjusted by varying the derivative

time. The derivative control is also called rate control.
 COMPENSATORS
•A device inserted into the system for the purpose of
satisfying the specifications is called compensator.
• The compensators basically introduce pole and/or zero
in open loop transfer function to modify the
performance of the system.
• In time domain, the transient state performance
specifications are rise time, maximum overshoot, settling
time and/or damping ratio.
•In frequency domain, the the transient state performance
specifications are phase margin, gain margin ,resonant peak
and/or bandwidth
•The steady state requirement are given in terms of error
constants.
•When a set of specifications are given for a system then a
suitable compensator should be designed so that the overall
system will meet the given specification.
•The compensation schemes used for feedback control
system are either series compensation or parallel
compensation.
The compensator may be electrical, mechanical, hydraulic,
pneumatic or other type of device or network.

The different types of electrical or electronic compensators

used are:
1. Lag compensator
2. Lead compensator
3. Lag –lead compensator
In control systems compensation is required in the following
situations.
•When the system is absolutely unstable, then compensation
is required to stabilize the system and also to meet the
desired specifications.
•When the system is stable compensation is provided to
provide the desired performance.
 LAG COMPENSATOR
•A compensator having the characteristics of a
lag network is called a lag compensator.
•The lag compensation results in a large
improvement in steady state performance but
results in slower transient response due to
reduced bandwidth.
•A lag compensator is basically a low pass filter
and so it amplifies low frequency noise signals
and attenuates high frequency noise signals.
REALISATION OF LAG COMPENSATOR
USING ELECTRICAL NETWORK
FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF LAG
COMPENSATOR
DETERMINATION OF
 LEAD COMPENSATOR
➢A compensator having the characteristics of a lead network
is called a lead compensator.

➢The lead compensation increases the bandwidth, which

improves the speed of the response and also reduces the
amount of overshoot.

➢Lead compensator improves the transient response and it is

provided to make an unstable system as a stable system.

➢A lead compensator is basically a high pass filter and so it

amplifies high frequency noise signals.
REALISATION OF LEAD COMPENSATOR
USING ELECTRICAL NETWORK
FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF LEAD
COMPENSATOR
 LAG LEAD COMPENSATOR
•A compensator having the characteristics of lag lead
network is called lag lead compensator.
•A lead compensator basically increases the
bandwidth and speeds up the response and decreases
the maximum overshoot in the step response.
•Lag compensation increases the low frequency gain
and thus improves the steady state accuracy of the
system but reduces the speed of the response due to
reduced bandwidth.
➢If improvements in both transient and steady state
response are desired, then both lead compensator and lag
compensator may be used simultaneously.
➢ Lag-Lead compensator possess two poles and two zeros
and so such a compensation increases the order of the
system by two unless cancellation of poles and zeros occurs in
the compensated system.
REALISATION OF LAG-LEAD COMPENSATOR
USING ELECTRICAL NETWOKS
FREQUENCY RESPONSE OF LAG-LEAD
COMPENSATOR
 APPLICATIONS OF CONTROLLERS
• Temperature controller
• Speed control
• PID controller
• Controllers can also be used to perform
various other tasks depending on the type
and structure i.e.,
• Adaptive control
• Optimal control
• Predative ,fuzzy, neural, and sliding controllers
TEMPERATURE CONTROLLER
APPLICATIONS OF COMPENSATORS
• Robotics
• Satellite control
• Automobile Diagnostics
• Laser frequency stabilisation
• It is also used in digital control systems
 COMPARISON OF CONTROLLERS
P-Controller I-Controller D- Controller

Proportional control resists Integral control detects and Derivative control detects and
error by applying an opposing corrects trends in error over resists abrupt changes in the
influence that is proportional time. system.
to the error.

It is a feedback control It is a feedback control It is a feed forward control

It leads to a constant steady It removes or reduces the It never improves steady state
state error steady state error error.

P-only control provides a Once the integral is evaluated, D-control is usually used for
linear relationship between the response is sent and the processes with rapidly
the error of a system and the system adjusts accordingly. changing process outputs.
COMPARISON OF COMPENSATORS
LAG COMPENSATOR LEAD COMPENSATOR
It adds a negative phase to system over It adds a positive phase to system over
the specified frequency range the specified frequency range

It is similar to PI controller It is similar to PD controller

Here pole is closer to origin than zero Here zero is closer to origin than pole

It improves the steady state response It improves the transient response

It acts as a Low Pass Filter It acts as a High Pass Filter

It increases the error constant It helps to increase the error constant

upto some extent
It decreases phase shift It increases the phase shift

It reduces the effect of noise (S/N) at output < (S/N) at input

PROBLEMS
 Effect of addition of poles and zeros on
system performance
• In design using root locus, the desired behaviour is specified in terms
of transient response specifications and steady state error
requirement.
• The steady state error is usually specified in terms of error constants
for standard inputs , while the transient response requirement is
specified in terms of peak overshoot, settling time, rise time etc., for
step input.
• In order to meet the desired specifications the root loci are reshaped
so that they pass through the points where the dominant closed loop
poles are located.
• The root loci are reshaped by introducing a compensator.
• The compensator will add a pole and/or a zero in the open loop
transfer function of the system.
• The addition of a pole to the open loop transfer function has the
effect of pulling the root locus to the right, which reduces the relative
stability of the system and increases the settling time.
• The addition of a zero to the open loop transfer function has the
effect of pulling the root locus to the left which make the system
more stable and reduce the settling time.

❖ The lag compensator is employed when a stable system has

satisfactory transient response characteristics but unsatisfactory
steady state characteristics i.e., error requirement .
❖ The transfer function of a lag compensator will have a zero
(compensating zero ) and a pole (compensating pole ).

➢ In order to preserve the transient response characteristics the

compensating pole and zero should have negligible effect of root
locus.
➢ This is achieved by placing the compensating pole and zero very
close to each other.
➢ If the pole and zero are located close to the origin then the
error constant will increase which will reduce the steady state
error.

• The lead compensator is employed when a system is either

unstable or stable but has undesirable transient response
characteristics.
• The transfer function of a lead compensator will have a zero
(compensating zero ) and a pole (compensating pole ).

➢ The compensator zero can be placed on the real axis by trial and
error to satisfy transient response specifications.
➢ The compensating pole is located on real axis such that it makes
negligible effect on the root locus in the region where two
dominant closed loop poles are located.
➢ If the pole is located far away from zero then it will
not be effective in suppressing the noise.
➢ If the pole is too close to zero the it will not allow
the zero to do its job .
➢ In order to avoid this one, the pole is located at 3 to
10 times the value of zero location.

▪ The lag-lead compensator is employed when both

transient and steady state characteristics are not
satisfactory.
▪ The lead compensation will improve the transient
response and lag compensation will reduce the
steady state error.
 FREQUENCY RESPONSE APPROACH TO
CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN
• The objective of frequency domain design is to reshape the
frequency response characteristics so that desired specifications are
satisfied. The frequency domain design can be carried out using
Nyquist plot, Bode plot or Nicholas chart.
• But Bode plot are popularly used for design because they are easier
to draw and modify. In design using Bode Plots the desired
performance specifications are given in terms of frequency domain
specifications and steady state error requirement.
• The stability requirement is specified in terms of phase margin and
resonant peak. The transient response requirements are specified in
terms of gain cross over frequency, bandwidth and resonant
frequency. The error requirement is specified in terms of static error
constants(Kp, Kv and Ka).
•The low frequency region of bode plot provides information regarding
the steady state performance and high frequency region provides
information regarding the transient state performance.
•The medium frequency range provides information regarding relative
stability.
➢Therefore, the low frequency region of bode plot is reshaped by lag
compensation to improve steady state performance.
➢Therefore, the high frequency region of bode plot is reshaped by lead
compensation to improve transient state performance.
➢When the system requires improvement in both steady state and
transient state lag-lead compensation can be employed to alter both
low and high frequency regions of bode plot.
✓The advantage in frequency domain design is that the effects of
disturbances, sensor noise are relatively easy to visualize in frequency
domain.
✓A disadvantage of frequency response design is that it gives us
information on closed loop system’s transient response indirectly, while
the root locus design gives this design directly.
PROBLEMS