Computer-aided Control System Design Tools Research Articles

Multi-objective optimization based tuning tool for industrial 2doF PID controllers

A computer-aided control system design tool is presented. This tool is able to take advantage of a database of Pareto optimal PID controllers. The idea is to give to the control engineer an useful tool to close the gap between the optimization procedure and the final selection of the parameters. The input to the tool are the allowed degradation of the considered cost functions, the desired level of robustness and the information of the plant, in the form of second order plus time delay model or a set of input-output data. The tool is written as a graphical user interface in MATLAB© and freely available to anyone.

A Light-Weight Rapid Control Prototyping System Based on Open Source Hardware

In this paper, we propose a light-weight rapid control prototyping (RCP) system based on off-the-shelf open source hardware to achieve high performance computing, cost effectiveness, portability, and easy accessiblity. The proposed RCP system consists of a PC-based computer-aided control system design (CACSD) tool for computing control action and tiny palm-sized open source hardware for input and output (I/O) operation and data transfer through a built-in high-speed USB interface. The popular-priced and portable open source hardware is used as a bridge between CACSD tools and real plants to deliver the control and sensor data at the sampling time points. Ten I/O function blocks written in C code are developed based on the CACSD tool employed for the proposed light-weight RCP system in order to handle I/O operation in a simple way. In addition, we suggest two practical strategies, a batch transfer strategy and a variable sampling period method, to increase the sampling rate of the control system. It is shown through experiment that the proposed light-weight RCP system works well up to a sampling rate of 2 kHz without adopting expensive hardware and C code generators. It is expected that the proposed RCP system will be considered as affordable and readily available to schools for mass education.

An Experience of CACSD for Networked Control Systems: From Mechatronic Platform Identification to Control Implementation

Continual advances in information and communication technologies (ICT) are revolutionizing virtual education and bringing new tools on the market that provide virtual solutions to a range of problems. Nevertheless, nonvirtual experimentation using computer-aided control system design tools is still fundamental for future engineers. This paper describes a control course laboratory element, which is designed to teach electronic control engineering, in which students use a networked control system to steer and drive an electric car prototype. Multidisciplinary in nature, this laboratory allows students to take advantage of their previous academic training, as they model the plant from an open-loop test and contrast the simulated behavior with experimental results obtained on the prototype. A goal in this work was that students, across multiple engineering disciplines, should be able to integrate the knowledge acquired throughout their degree studies. An evaluation of students' grades, and their perception of the course, was conducted; this confirmed the educational benefits of the approach.

Interactive control system design

This contribution describes a LabVIEW-based interactive computer-aided control system design tool. Although it does not provide the flexibility of common low-level design tools, it offers a set of comfortable, ready-to-use solutions for plant identification, loop-shaping or LQR/LQG-controller design and controller implementation. The tool integrates into industrial plant control and enables engineers to efficiently do the control system design from plant identification to controller implementation on the same platform. The user interface with convenient system editors and analysis tools facilitates the user to interactively attain the design goals. If desired, a configurable wizard leads the user through the design process.

Control education: time for radical change?

Aims to identify, and review critically, some of the hidden assumptions in the conventional control engineering curriculum, to stimulate debate within the control community. Topics addressed include the role of mathematics; the philosophy of engineering; the use of computer-based tools; and the aspirations and requirements of students and employers. The article is prompted by a number of current issues in control engineering education, including: how to improve the structure and content of our curricula, and how to recruit more students to study control engineering; the implications for control education of the increasingly rapid pace of technological change-in particular, the role of computers and computer-aided control system design tools; the (at times acrimonious) debate within the control engineering profession on fuzzy and intelligent control; and the role of so-called nontechnical subjects in engineering education.

GAMMA-1PC As CACSD Tools for Practicing Engineers

GAMMA-1PC is a computer-aided control system design (CACSD) tools for controllers algorithms synthesis of multivariable plants by engineers-developers of control system. It does not require a knowledge of synthesis process: user points out a type of his problem (directive number) and enters, after computer request, an initial data: differential equations of plant, disturbance boundaries, tolerances on steadystate errors etc.A problem solution is performed automatically.The tools for modernization and an increase of directive quantity by a researcher are proposed. They contain the languages for building of directive user interface and directive software tools for calculation.Using GAMMA-1PC new solution of gyroplatform controller synthesis problem is derived.

CACSD-Frame for Robust Low-Complexity Control Law Design

Robust low-complexity control laws design is the ultimate goal which Computer-Aided Control System Design (CACSD) aims for. We recognize seven classes of services CACSD tools and environments have to support w.r.t. this view: physical system modelling with modelling uncertainty descriptions; mathematical system modelling with suited uncertainty models; system model analysis in state space, time- and frequency domain; control law synthesis; multiobjective (multicriteria and multimodel) synthesis-parameter tuning; nonlinear assessment via simulation; control code generation. We deal with state of the art aspects of such services and their integration within an interactively controlled automatic design feedback loop. This is illustrated by experience gained during the two-years GARTEUR a a Group for Aeronautics Research and Technology in Europe design challenge project on Robust Aircraft Flight Control, where 12 teams from 6 European countries demonstrated 11 different CACSD synthesis methods to design a landing-approach autopilot controller based on a Beluga-type aircraft model from Airbus Industries.

Parallel computing in CACSD

Computer-aided design of control systems via multiobjective optimisation is a computationally demanding task that may benefit from parallel processing techniques. In this paper, we report on a new parallel processing gateway that supports the use of parallel processing within the framework of an existing computer-aided control system design software package. In many control system design exercises which employ optimisation, the bulk of the computational effort is devoted to the evaluation of the objectives of the optimisation at each iteration. This paper demonstrates, with an example, how, using the gateway, parallel processing can be used within the framework of existing computer-aided control system design tools to compute these objective values.

Development of Computer-Aided Control System Design Tools

Development of Computer-Aided Control System Design Tools

Approach to robust multivariable combustion control design

Two robust controller structures are presented. The first is a multivariable proportional-integral output feedback pole assignment controller and the second is a robust servomechanism scheme. These two structures affect the process in quite different ways and therefore can be combined to give more robust control than each controller separately. The mentioned structure was used for combustion control, which represents a multivariable and nonlinear problem with time delay. The simulation results of a closed-loop control system are presented and discussed. The whole procedure of designing robust multivariable control was supported with the corresponding computer-aided control system design tools.

Computer-aided control system design at Cornell: Student reaction is positive to the incorporation of emerging computer-aided control system design (CACSD) software in the teaching of introductory control systems theory in the School of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University

The authors report that the availability of CACSD (computer-aided control system design) packages is enriching the practice and teaching of control systems theory. They describe their experience in the School of Electrical Engineering at Cornell University in incorporating CACSD tools into the teaching of introductory control systems courses on classical analog control and modern sampled-data control. The students' positive response has encouraged the idea that CACSD tools offer an invaluable reinforcement of the lecture material, an avoidance of the numerical drudgery of many control design problems, and an increase in the simulated `realism' of their homework assignments. The availability of such software and of a classroom video display capabilities has also encouraged an increased number of complex modeling and simulation questions that can now be examined by the students.