Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T.

Bombay, India

Lecture 10: Stability and nonlinear

systems
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Concept of system stability

If the system is perturbed from its current (steady) state,does it do

either of the following:
Return to its original position
Move to a new position in a “bounded” fashion
Keeps on moving in a “bounded” fashion
Keeps on moving in an “unbounded” fashion ?
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Illustrative examples
A closed loop may exhibit any of the following behaviour:

For a small perturbation

in the set-point or a
disturbance, the closed
loop may respond in a
variety of ways.

Could the response be a

function of the input size
as well ?
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Illustrative examples (contd.)

Consider the ramp response of a first order plant :

Although the first order plant

is “stable” for all other
inputs, it exhibits
“unbounded” behaviour due
to input “unboundedness”

Input dependence is even

more true for nonlinear
systems.
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Bounded Input Bounded Output stability

For causal systems therefore, it makes sense to define

stability in terms of bounded-ness to a bounded input.

If in response to a bounded input the dynamic trajectory of a

system remains bounded as t  infinity, then the system is
said to be stable; else it is said to be unstable.

Definition takes care of ramp system responses as well as

sustained oscillations seen in some closed loop systems.
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Stability of linear systems

Consider the general representation of general high order plants:

bq s q  bq 1s q 1  bq 2 s q  2  ...  b0
g ( s) 
b p s p  b p 1s p 1  b p  2 s p  2  ...  b0

Or, ( s  z1 )( s  z 2 )....(s  zq )
g ( s)  K
( s  r1 )( s  r2 )...(s  rp )

The roots determine the behaviour of the system as is evident from

the following:
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Stability of linear systems

1
y (s)  g (s)
s
Expanding by partial fractions,
A0 p Ai
y(s)  
s i 1 ( s  ri )
Inverting in the time domain,
p
y (t )  A0   Ai e ri t
i 1
Thus, if ri is positive, the output grows with time else, it decays with
time.
Important Note: The stability is unaffected by the locations of the zeros.
Zeros thus do not affect the system stability.
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Stability of linear systems

Thus if all the poles of the system lie in the left half plane,then the system
is stable.

For nonlinear systems, one can analyze the stability properties of the
linearized system. If it is stable, the nonlinear system could be stable in a
local neighbourhood. If the linearized system is unstable, the nonlinear
system would also be unstable.

Open Loop unstable systems can be stabilized under feedback.

Open Loop stable systems can exhibit unstable performance under
feedback.
Note: Controller Design is therefore very important.
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Stability evaluation for state space form

It can be shown that the eigenvalues of the A matrix are negative

reciprocals of the time constants.

The output behaviour can be written in exactly the same manner:

p
y (t )  A0   Ai eit
i 1

where the ’s are eigen values of the matrix A

Thus, if all the eigenvalues of the system A have negative real

parts, the system is said to be stable.
Department of Chemical Engineering I.I.T. Bombay, India

Conditional Stability

The transfer function is conditionally stable based on the values

of K

6K
g ( s) 
48s 3  44s 2  12s  (1  6 K )

So, K has to be chosen judiciously so that one gets stable

behaviour.