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Saturday, 15 November 2014

Control Systems (L1)



                    

INTRODUCTION
                Control  theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering  and mathematics. It deals with the response of the Dynamic system for the given input and the change in its behaviour by feedback. Automatic control is important in many engineering application and science.  Automatic control has many applications in process plants, robotics, space-vehicle and in many industrial operations like monitoring and control of temperature, pressure, humidity, etc.
                Commonly used control theories are Conventional/classical control theory, Modern control theory and Robust control theory. Basic knowledge of Laplace Transform, Differential equations, Partial-Fraction Expansion, Vector-Matrix Algebra are required for complete understanding of Control theory.
                Control theories and techniques are roughly classifies into  :

·         Classical Control:  Proportional -Integral-Derivative(PID) controller used by many industries in 1940s to control pressure, temperature, etc., Examples: Process control in chemical plants, Aeroplanes, etc..

·         Optimal Control: Kalman filter, Linear quadratic regulator control developed in 1960s to achieve optimal performance.

·         Modern Control: It is Centered around robust control and associated topics. It is developed in 1980s to 1990s.

·         Robust Control: Hα control, to handle systems with uncertainties, disturbances and  with high performance.

·         Non-linear Control: It is the hot research topic and it is developed to handle non-linear system with high performance. Examples: Missiles.

·         Intelligent Control: These control techniques adapt various AI approaches like Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Fuzzy logic, Knowledge based control, adaptive control, evolutionary computation, genetic algorithm, etc., to control highly dynamic systems. It is developed in 1990s to handle systems with unknown models. Examples: eco-system, human systems.

There are many other classifications in control theory other than the above.  The above classifications are just an introductory to the types of control theories.


BRIEF HISTORY
1868               The control system field begin with the work of a physicist James Clerk Maxwell  on dynamic analysis of Centrifugal Watt governor for the speed control  of a steam engine.

1877               Edward John Routh abstracted Maxwell’s result for the general class of Linear systems. Adolf Hurwitz analysed system stability using differential equations which is known as Routh-Hurwitz theorem

1922               Minorsky worked on automatic controllers for steering ships. He showed how stability could be determined  from the  differential equations describing the system.

1932               Nyquist developed relatively simple procedure for determining the stability of closed-loop systems on the basis of  open-loop response to steady-state sinusoidal inputs.

1934               Hazen introduced the term SERVOMECHANISM  for position control systems.

1940               Frequency-Response method was developed which made engineers to design linear closed-loop control systems.

1940-1950  PID controllers were used in many industrial control systems to control pressure, temperature, etc., Ziegler-Nichols suggested rules for tuning PID controller called Ziegler-Nichols tuning rules. During this period root-locus method due to Evans was fully developed.

1960               Control theories for modern plants with many inputs and many outputs was developed. Such a modern control systems are complex and requires large number of equations. Modern control theory, based on time-domain analysis and synthesis using state variables , time-domain analysis of complex system is possible by the availability of  digital computers.

1960-1980   Optimal control of both deterministic and stochastic systems  were investigated. Also adaptive and learning control of complex system were analysed.

1980-1990    robust control and its associated topics were developed.

References & Sources:
·         Katsushiks Oguta - Modern Control Engineering, V Edition.

·     Wikipedia

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