Demonstrating effects of a dynamical feedforward
control for the first order system
Peter Ťapák and Mikuláš Huba
Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
Ilkovičova 3, 812 19 Bratislava, Slovakia
Email: peter.tapak, mikulas.huba@stuba.sk
Abstract—An analysis of different 2DOF PI controller tuning
methods in [1], [2] showed significant advantages of a noise atten-
uation oriented predictive disturbance observer based filtered PI
control (PDO-FPI) against the traditional two degree of freedom
(2DOF) PI control. Analytically, as well as by the numerical
performance portrait method it discovered that the potential
improvements in the disturbance response are significantly higher
than those in the setpoint response. This paper shows that the
PDO-FPI does not make use of the whole control potential
regarding the analysed first order plants with a possible dead
time. The corresponding control structures will be derived by
augmenting the well known control loop with a reference model
by an additional disturbance observer for an input disturbance.
The theoretical analysis will be illustrated by experimental
results.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Let us start with an ideal setpoint and disturbance feedfor-
ward control in Fig. 1. Since for majority of plants the required
plant dynamics inversion that would guarantee for all times
the identity y(t) = w(t) is not feasible, one has to consider a
lowpass filter Q with an appropriate relative degree that will
−1
offer a proper filtered plant model inversion QS . For plants
with a noninvertible model dynamics denoted as S + , the filter
should be composed as
Q = Q0 S +
with Q0 denoting an appropriate low pass filter. A lowpass
filter Qi representing a band limited dynamics of a disturbance
measurement, or reconstruction, has also to be considered in
a disturbance feedforward channel.
This all will slow down real dynamics of the output that
will be given for an open loop control as
Wr (s) = Q(s)W (s) + S(s)[1 − Qi (s)]Di (s)
⇒ wr (t) 6= w(t)
Since a pole-zero cancellation is not applicable to unstable
systems and the ideal output response (2) directly depends on
Figure 1. Ideal setpoint and input disturbance feedforward control
the plant dynamics, the dynamical feedforward control may be
applied to unstable plants just under a stabilizing controller R.
Within a reference model concept [3], the stabilizing con-
troller should act just in situations with a plant-model mis-
match, when y 6= wr . But, in a closed loop control an exact
expression of an ideal output wr as a function of an acting
disturbance becomes complex. Furthermore, for unstable and
integral plants the corrective signal in the red path diverges to
infinity. Therefore, such a scheme is obviously not applicable
to unstable plants. Usually, the corrective path is fully omitted
and the controller R actively compensates disturbances also
in a nominal case. However, it also means that the real output
transients differ from (2) and, in general, they are not known
in advance. They will be simply approximated as
Wr (s) ≈ Q(s)W (s) (3)
For the case of an input disturbance feedforward control (3)
the control scheme with a reference model [4], [5] should then
be modified according to Fig. 3 (black).
In Fig. 4, a direct disturbance feedforward is replaced by a
disturbance observer based on an inverse plant dynamics [6].
Thereby, Qi has to fullfill the same requirements as Q (1).
(1) In a modular approach to disturbance observer based in-
tegral control it may be advantageous to filter by a lowpass
filter not only the disturbance observer signal, but also the
plant output for the stabilizing controller R. Then, the scheme
has to be modified according to Fig. 5.
II. E XAMPLE
Fig. 6 shows transient responses of the controller according
to Fig. 4 designed for the plant
(2)
Y (s) Ks −Td s
S(s) = = e (4)
U (s) s+a
Figure 2. Filtered setpoint and input disturbance feedforward control
with the parameters a = 1/3; Ks = a, Td = 1. The required
filters have been chosen as
1 by using the laboratory thermo-optical plant [14]. The light
Q(s) = Qi (s) = e−Td s (5)
1.5s + 1
i.e. with a time constant equal to one half of the plant time
constant Tp = 1/a.
Under the same requirements, a dead time compensator has
been proposed by using the modified Smith predictor approach
presented in [7], [8]. Thereby, a first order predictor filter has
been considered.
Finally, the third considered approach corresponds to a
2DOF PI control tuned by the triple real dominant pole method
[9] that allows to tune analytically all required parameters
Kc , Ti and the setpoint weighting b. As it was shown in [1],
it offers a well balanced setpoint and disturbance responses
with a sufficient robustness against uncertainties.
By applying these control concepts to the plant (4) without
control constraints, one gets the responses in Fig. 6. Obviously,
the setpoint responses of the dead time compensator according
to [8] are fully equivalent to the presented solution. However,
disturbance responses given by the predictive disturbance
observer are obviously faster.
Differences between the dead time compensator by Normey-
Rico and Camacho occur in the disturbance response. Due
to the predictive disturbance observer combined with the
stabilizing controller, the disturbance response is considerably
accelerated. Thereby, the new solution may also be applied in
a fully continuous implementation to unstable plants, whereas
the modified Smith predictor may deal with such situations
just in a digitized version.
Another important difference appears in constrained control,
where the modified Smith predictor typically yields a windup
effect. As it was shown in [10], [11], [12], [13], this handicap
could be elliminated by using a 2DOF P control instead of the
stabilizing PI control.
Although the 2DOF PI control could yield acceptable re-
sults, in general it is no more able to guarantee a speed of
setpoit responses comparable with both above mentioned dead
time compensators. Here, it is considered just to illustrate
limits of the traditional PI control.
Figure 3. Control with a reference model modified for a filtered disturbance
feedforward control
III. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULTS
In this section, experiments will be reported carried out
channel consist of the light bulb which acts as a light source,
the system input is the bulb voltage[0-100 %], the output is the
value from the light intensity sensor filtered with the first order
low pass filter with the time constant set to Tp = 3 seconds. It
corresponds to typical FOPDT model, but the input-to-output
characteristics is strongly non-linear as one can see in Fig. 8.
All three controllers have been experimentally compared
by introducing an additional software delay Tda = 42Ts =
42∗0.02s, which together with the inherent delay of the optical
channel Tdi = 0.15s give the total delay Td = 0.99s. The plant
time constant is Tp = 3s. The loop has been linearized by an
inverse input-output nonlinearity at the controller output [15].
Transients in Fig. 9 fully confirm the simulation results
above. For evaluating deviations from ideal strictly one-pulse
(1P) shapes of a plant input u(t) (uT V1 = 0) may under
denotation um = max{u} be expressed by the uT V1 measure
defined as
X
uT V1 = |ui+1 − ui | − |2um − u∞ − u0 | (6)
i
Speed of transients at the plant output may be quantitatively
evaluated by the IAE (Integral of Absolute Error)
Z ∞
IAE = |e(t)| dt (7)
0
Evaluation of the IAE and uT V1 values in Fig. 10 illus-
trates data expected on the basis of the analysis made in [15]:
Both dead time compensators yield an equivalent dynamics
of the setpoint responses that is significantly better than that
of the traditional PI control. Regarding a setpoint response,
the controller according to Fig. 4 gives the fastest responses.
The increased uT V1 values could be at least partially reduced
Figure 4. Control with a reference model extended by a disturbance observer
Figure 5. Filtered control with a reference model and a disturbance observer
for an input disturbance
 1.4

Constrained Control
1.2 1.4

1 1.2

0.8 1
−−−> y

0.6 NR−CA 0.8

−−−> y
Vi−Vi
DFF−PDO−FPI
0.4 0.6 NR−CA
Vi−Vi
0.2 DFF−PDO−FPI
0.4

0 0.2
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
−−−> t

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
2 −−−> t
NR−CA
1.8 Constrained Control
Vi−Vi
1.4
DFF−PDO−FPI
1.6
NR−CA
1.4 1.2 Vi−Vi
DFF−PDO−FPI
1.2
1
−−−> u

0.8 0.8
−−−> u

0.6
0.6
0.4
0.4
0.2

0 0.2
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
−−−> t

0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Figure 6. Transient responses of different controllers - linear case −−−> t

Figure 7. Transient responses of different controllers - constrained control

by considering a filtered controller modification according to

Fig. 5.
The following figures (Fig. 11- 12) show the dependency of
the control quality on the dead time value. It shows the results 80
Input−output characteristic y=f(u)

of the real experiments with various additional dead times. The

70
IAE values of both dead time compensators are similar, the
60
IAE values of traditional PI control are many times higher
and the value rises dramatically with increasing dead time. 50
Measured points of IO characteristics
−−−> y

Linear interpolation of IO characteristics

The uT V1 values of the traditional PI controller are lower 40

for large dead times. The solution proposed by Normey-Rico 30

and Camacho yields better uT V1 values in experiments with 20

relatively small dead time. The disturbance observer based PI 10

controller gives the highest uT V1 values in all setpoint step 0

0 20 40 60 80 100
experiments. −−−> u

The disturbance steps performance was the same by the Figure 8. Input-to-output characteristic of the light channel
means of the uT V1 values. However in all these experiments
the disturbance observer based PI controller gives the best
performance considering the IAE values.
 IAE Real experiment results, System output
60 36
Setpoint
NR−CA
NR−CA
Vi−Vi 34 Vi−Vi
50 DFF−PDO−FPI DFF−PDO−FPI

32
40

−−−> Light intensity

30
30
28

20
26

10
24

0 22
Setpoint Up Setpoint Down Disturbance Up Disturbance Down 50 100 150 200 250 300
−−−> t

uTV Real experiment results, Control signal

1
14 40
NR−CA
NR−CA Vi−Vi
12 Vi−Vi DFF−PDO−FPI
35
DFF−PDO−FPI

10
30
−−−> Control signal
8
25
6

20
4

15
2

0 10
Setpoint Up Setpoint Down Disturbance Up Disturbance Down 50 100 150 200 250 300
−−−> t

Figure 10. IAE and uT V1 values of different controllers - real time control Figure 9. Transient responses of different controllers - real time control

Control quality − Setpoint step − IAE − dead time dependancy

300 Control quality − IAE − Disturbance step − dead time dependancy
600
NR−CA
200
−−−> IAE

Vi−Vi NR−CA
400
−−−> IAE

DFF−PDO−FPI Vi−Vi
DFF−PDO−FPI
100
200

0
0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
0
−−−> Dead Time [s] 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
Control quality − Setpoint step − uTV1 − dead time dependancy −−−> Dead Time [s]
60 Control quality − uTV1 − Disturbance step − dead time dependancy
60
−−−> uTV1

40
−−−> uTV1

40

20
20
NR−CA
0
0.4 0.6 Vi−Vi0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2 NR−CA
DFF−PDO−FPI−−−> Dead Time [s] 0
0.4 0.6 Vi−Vi0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6 1.8 2
DFF−PDO−FPI−−−> Dead Time [s]

Figure 11. IAE and uT V1 values dependency on dead time for setpoint
step Figure 12. IAE and uT V1 values dependency on dead time for disturbance
step
 IV. C ONCLUSIONS
The paper compares a dead time compensator proposed by
an extension of the control loop with a reference model by a
disturbance observer based on inversion of the plant dynamics
with two the best known alternatives used in practice: the
2DOF PI control by [9] and the modified Smith predictor by
[8], [16].
The comparison shows that the new solution gives setpoint
responses equivalent to the previously published solution
by Normay-Rico and Camacho [8]. However, the stabiliz-
ing controller combined with the disturbance observer yields
significantly better disturbance response and guarantees also
improved properties under constrained control. Influence of
the dead time value on the performance of the all considered
controllers was verified by experiments on real plant. The loop
may be extended by introducing an additional filtration to im-
prove a noise attenuation. The experimental results also show
that a significant input plant nonlinearity may successfully
be compensated by an inverse non-linearity at the controller
output.
V. ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work has been partially supported by the grants APVV-
0343-12 Computer aided robust nonlinear control design and
VEGA 1/0937/14 Advanced methods for nonlinear modeling
and control of mechatronic systems.
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