Control Engineering 2

Stability Analysis of Closed Loop

Systems in the z Plane. The digital
PID. Choosing the sampling period

Dr. Eng. Cristina I. Muresan 1

 Outline and Objectives
• Recap from second lecture
• Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Methods for testing absolute stability
• Worked examples
• The digital PID
• Main objectives:
– understanding the importance of the choice for the sampling
period
– testing the stability of a discrete-time system
– Implementation forms for the digital PID

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 Recap from second lecture
• Mapping between the s place and the z plane
• Locations of poles/zeros in the z plane depend upon the locations of
poles/zeros in the s plane and on the sampling period T:

Im Im
1
Unstable
Stable Unstable

Re 1 1 Re
Stable

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 Recap from second lecture
• Mapping between the s place and the z plane
• Locations of poles/zeros in the z plane depend upon the locations of
poles/zeros in the s plane and on the sampling period T:

Im Im
1
Unstable
Stable Unstable

Re 1 1 Re
Stable

4
 Recap from second lecture
• Mapping between the s place and the z plane
• Locations of poles/zeros in the z plane depend upon the locations of
poles/zeros in the s plane and on the sampling period T:

Im Im
1
Unstable
Stable Unstable

Re 1 1 Re
Stable

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Stability according to discretization methods

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Stability according to discretization methods

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Stability according to discretization methods

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Problem: infinite number of signals that pass through a finite
number of points
• Solution: taking the samples sufficiently close to each other can
lead to the unique identification (or reconstruction) of the
continuous-time signal that generated the samples.

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Sampling theorem (Shannon’s theorem): sampling frequency
should be greater or equal to twice the maximum signal frequency
• Higher sampling frequency allows for a more accurate
representation of the analog signal waveform

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Sampling theorem (Shannon’s theorem): sampling frequency
should be greater or equal to twice the maximum signal frequency
• Higher sampling frequency allows for a more accurate
representation of the analog signal waveform

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Aliasing (frequency folding): the results of undersampling
(sampling frequency is too low to capture high frequency
components in the analog signal)

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Aliasing (frequency folding): the results of undersampling
(sampling frequency is too low to capture high frequency
components in the analog signal)

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Aliasing (frequency folding): the results of undersampling
(sampling frequency is too low to capture high frequency
components in the analog signal)

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Aliasing (frequency folding): the results of undersampling
(sampling frequency is too low to capture high frequency
components in the analog signal)

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Aliasing (frequency folding): the results of undersampling
(sampling frequency is too low to capture high frequency
components in the analog signal)

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 Frequency folding and the sampling period
• Aliasing (frequency folding): the results of undersampling
(sampling frequency is too low to capture high frequency
components in the analog signal)

• Aliasing: the signal has a false presentation

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A few remarks on selecting the sampling time

• In signal processing one is interested in making the

difference between the original and the reconstructed
signal as small as possible (=high fidelity)
• In control systems one is interested that the closed-loop
system behaves according to specs, not much in carefully
reconstructing e(t) = r(t)- y(t) !
• The sampling time used in control is typically larger than
the one used in signal processing
• That’s why in control applications we are often ok with
micro-controllers and don’t need DSPs (digital signal
processors)
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A few remarks on selecting the sampling time

• Special attention to numerical problems:

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A few remarks on selecting the sampling time

• Make the sampling time small enough to

reproduce the open-loop time response
enough precisely and to avoid aliasing effects
• Make the sampling time large enough to avoid
numerical issues
• Make the sampling time large enough to avoid
fast and expensive control hardware

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 Methods for testing absolute stability
• Closed loop discrete transfer function:

• Stability is determined by the location of the closed loop poles (the roots of
the characteristic equation):

• For the system to be stable, the closed loop poles must lie within the unit
circle in the z plane. Any closed loop pole outside the unit circle makes the
system unstable
• If a simple pole lies at z=1, then the system becomes critically stable.
Similarly, if a pair of complex conjugated poles lies on the unit circle. Any
multiple closed loop pole on the unit circle makes the system unstable
• Closed loop zeros do not affect the system stability and may be located
anywhere in the z plane
• Stability tests: Schur-Chon, Jury, Bilinear transformation + Routh-Hurwitz
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 Bilinear Transformation and Routh stability
criterion
• Using the substitution

the characteristic polynomial in z

becomes

which may further be written as

Stability may be determined using Routh-Hurwitz criterion using the

last equation
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 The digital PID controller
• Facts:
– In a PID controller the control variable is
generated from a term proportional to the error, a
term which is the integral of the error, and a term
which is the derivative of the error.
– The input–output relationship of a continuous-
time PID controller can be expressed as:

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 The digital PID controller

where u(t) is the output from the controller and

e(t) = r (t) − y(t), in which r (t) is the desired set-
point (reference input) and y(t) is the plant
output
• Taking the Laplace transform:

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 The digital PID controller
• Discrete equivalent:
• The simplest method is to use the backward
difference approximation:

• Then, the digital PID is:

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 The digital PID controller
• Positional PID controller:

• Digital PID using the Z transform of:

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 The digital PID controller

• Velocity form of the digital PID:

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 The digital PID controller
• Start from the continuous-time transfer
function of the PID controller
• Use a discretization method to obtain the
discrete-time equivalent
• https://www.controleng.com/articles/unders
tanding-derivative-in-pid-control/

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 Next week

Lecture 4. Tuning digital PID controllers using

“via s” methods. A revisit of phase margin
methods

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 Thank you!

That’s it for today



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