Abstract
Engineering education and, particularly, control engineering, has shown growth in research and development activities during last years. Currently, proportional–integral (PI) and proportional–integral–derivative (PID) controllers are the most commonly used in industrial process applications. Nonetheless, it is reported that many of them are badly tuned. From an educational perspective, it is crucial for the student to understand the importance of tuning a control loop correctly. This paper presents an interactive tool focused on the study of PI controllers. The tool provides a set of tuning rules for both open-loop stable and unstable first order plus time delay processes. The different tuning rules can be compared interactively by the user, allowing a critical analysis of basic concepts about stability, robustness, and performance in PI control loops. In addition to educational purposes, the tool has been developed, taking into account practical considerations, such as simulation with a controller discrete implementation, process input saturations, and windup effect. We evaluated students’ achievement in the final examination in the Automatic Control course of the Electronics Engineering degree. Students showed significant improvement in their understanding of PI controller design. A survey and a practical case study were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed tool.
Highlights
We evaluated students’ achievement in the final examination in the Automatic Control course of the Electronics Engineering degree
PI and PID have been the classic type of controllers since mid-20th century, and they continue as the most often used control scheme [3]. As it was concluded at the International Federation of Automatic Control Conference on Advances in PID control in 2012, PID/PI controllers will remain as the main implemented control algorithms, in spite of other promising proposals, such as model predictive control paradigms [4]
The objective of this paper is about developing a graphical analysis tool for PI controller designs, with the main aim of comparing the performance of the different tuning rules for first order plus time delay (FOPTD) systems available in the literature
Summary
According to [2], it is estimated that over 90% of control loops employ. PI and PID have been the classic type of controllers since mid-20th century, and they continue as the most often used control scheme [3]. As it was concluded at the International Federation of Automatic Control Conference on Advances in PID control in 2012, PID/PI controllers will remain as the main implemented control algorithms, in spite of other promising proposals, such as model predictive control paradigms [4]. According to [5], 68% of Symmetry 2018, 10, 569; doi:10.3390/sym10110569 www.mdpi.com/journal/symmetry
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
