BRAC UNIVERSITY

EEE 306 – Control System Laboratory

Experiment No. 05
Position Control with Velocity Feedback

Objectives:
 Set up a servo system to respond to step inputs using proportional gain and velocity
feedback.
 Set up a servo system to respond to ramp inputs using proportional gain and transient
velocity feedback
Equipment:
 MS15 DC Motor Module
 AS3 Command Potentiometer
 CLIO Interface Module with PC Connection Lead
 System Power 90 Power Supply (or equivalent)
 4mm Connecting Leads
 PC running VCL Virtual Control Laboratory Software
Connection Diagram:

Fig1: Wiring Diagram - Analog Control

Prepared by: Abir Ahsan Akib and Sushmit Hossain

 Theory:
A system can be characterized by its Natural Frequency ωn and its Damping Factor ζ. The
natural frequency ωn is a measure of the speed of response of the system, the time to first
peak being dependent mainly on ωn. The damping factor ζ is an indication of how
oscillatory the system is. It was also shown that, in a closed loop system, the proportional
gain affected both ωn and ζ. Increasing gain makes the system respond faster but also
makes it more oscillatory. This results in greater overshoot and longer settling time.
What is required is a scheme whereby the proportional gain can be increased to speed up
the system and another control introduced to increase the damping.
The additional control added is called Velocity Feedback (VFB). In the early days of
electromechanical servo systems, it was easy to introduce velocity feedback as a voltage
proportional to rotational velocity can be obtained from the signals associated with an
electric motor. Nowadays a separate tachogenerator is more likely to be used to generate
the velocity signal.
To influence the damping factor, the apparent time constant of the motor must be
changed. Increasing the gain of the speed controller reduces the time constant. Velocity
Feedback uses this fact to produce an inner control loop with Kv being a time constant
adjustment independent of the proportional gain. The block diagram of this is shown in
Fig 2.

Fig 2: Servo System with Velocity Feedback

With velocity feedback to dampen the oscillations:
 Increasing the gain makes the system work faster - provided the drive signal does not
saturate. Once the drive saturates the response time tends to remain constant.
 Increasing gain reduces steady state errors due to static friction and backlash.
However, owing to drive saturation, high gain will make the response to large changes
differ from that to small changes. The gain and velocity feedback have to be optimized
for the most important type of signal.
Having two controls allows two parameters to be controlled. Gain controls the speed of
response and velocity feedback controls the amount of damping.
Calculating Kv and Kc from Rise Time and Overshoot specifications:

Prepared by: Abir Ahsan Akib and Sushmit Hossain

 Often the specification for a system is given in terms of a required maximum %Overshoot
and a maximum Rise Time.
Damping Factor can be obtained from overshoot by the formula:

It can be shown that the controller proportional gain, Kc, required for the specified time
to first peak and damping factor is given by:

Kp, Ki and ωc were measured in previous experiments.

The velocity feedback required is given by:

Since Kv is dependent on Kc, Kc must be calculated first.

Procedure:
 The system should be wired with the standard analog system connections as shown in Fig
1. Start the VCL software and Load setup | CA06PE08.

 Switch on the system. The Gain Kc should be set to 2.5 and the Velocity Feedback Kv to
0 (Off). The Magnify control of the input and position traces have been set to 5.
 The system is very underdamped. Observe that the drive signal (brown) does not go
negative to brake movement until the position (blue) has gone above the input (dark
blue). Selecting Time x4 will make this more obvious.

Prepared by: Abir Ahsan Akib and Sushmit Hossain

 Add Velocity Feedback by setting Kv to 1.00. The oscillations have been reduced.
Observe that the drive now goes negative to brake the motor well before the output
reaches its final value. Increase Kv to 2.00. Braking now starts even earlier. Velocity
Feedback has stabilized the system.
 Adjust Kv until there is just a small overshoot and note the value in your datasheet. This
is usually considered the “best” or “optimal” setting for a particular gain.
 Increasing the gain should increase the speed of response. With a small overshoot, the
speed of response can be measured by taking the time for the output response to reach its
final value for the first time, i.e. when it crosses the input trace assuming both are on the
same scale. This is called the Rise Time Tr. Since ωn is proportional to K, rise time will
be proportional to √𝐾, i.e. if K is doubled, rise time will fall by 0.7.
Using the x2, x4 or x8 time expansion controls will allow the rise times to be measured
more accurately. Set the gain to different values. For each gain adjust Kv to give the same
overshoot. Measure the rise time, calculate the expected rise time (using the Kc = 2.5
values and √𝐾 proportionality) and enter the values into your datasheet.
 With Kc = 10 and Kv at the setting to give optimum response, set the eddy current brake
to position 2. Observe that there is little change to the overall response even though the
extra load changes the gain and time constant of the plant. The response is now
dominated by the loop gain and the velocity feedback

Observation and Tabulation:

Velocity Feedback:

Optimizing the Settings:

Design Exercise:
 Determine the gain and velocity feedback necessary for your servo system to have an
overshoot of 10% and a time to first peak of 300 ms mathematically.

 Enter these values into the controller and check measure the resulting overshoot and time
to first peak with an input Level of 12%.

Prepared by: Abir Ahsan Akib and Sushmit Hossain

 Change the plant to Plant | Servo. Enter your model values into the plant gain, time
constant and integral gain boxes. Measure the overshoot and time to first peak of the
model.

Report:

 Are the rise time almost same as expected rise times for all values of gain? If no, what is
the reason of this discrepancy?
 In the design exercise, are the measured plant and model parameters consistent? If no,
what is the reason of this discrepancy?

Prepared by: Abir Ahsan Akib and Sushmit Hossain