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10.3 Cascade-Control Analysis

There are two common ways to represent a cascade-control system in transfer function form:
series cascade and parallel cascade. The series cascade representation shown in Figure 10-8 is the
most common, so it will be used in the analysis performed in this section. Students interested in
analysis using the parallel structure can work Exercise 11.

Figure 10-8. Series cascade structure.

We use the following algebraic manipulations to understand the effect of the secondary (inner-
loop) on the primary (or outer) loop. Notice that the secondary output can be written

Equation 10.1

The secondary closed-loop transfer function can be defined as

Equation 10.2

Further analysis yields

Equation 10.3

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After tuning the inner loop, we can use the following transfer function to design the outer-loop
controller.

Equation 10.4

and the closed-loop relationship for a primary setpoint change is

Equation 10.5

where it is clear that the secondary closed-loop transfer function affects the primary control loop.
Notice that if the secondary control loop is much faster than the primary loop, so that gc2CL = 1 (on
a relative time scale to the primary control loop), then the closed-loop transfer function for the
primary loop is

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