Lecture 0: Overview of the EE380 Control Systems Laboratory

Ramprasad Potluri and Manavaalan Gunasekaran

Department of Electrical Engineering, IIT Kanpur.

July 30, 2013

Contents 8 Ex.2: Speed tracks a reference sinusoid 10
8.1 Theoretical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
1 Aim of these control experiments 3 8.2 Practical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

2 Skills got in converting design to practice 4 9 Ex.3: Ziegler-Nichols tuning of speed con-
troller 11
3 The work bench 5 9.1 Theoretical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
9.2 Practical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4 Tasks common to all experiments 6
4.1 Simulation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 10 Ex.4: Speed control using feedback of
4.2 Realization on hardware . . . . . . . . 6 current 12
10.1 Practical goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
4.3 Analysis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
11 Ex.5 Current control 13
5 Block diagram of experimental setup 7
11.1 Theoretical goal . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
11.2 Practical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
6 List of experiments 8
12 Ex.6: Disturbance observer 14
7 Ex.1: Modeling, identification, speed con-
12.1 Theoretical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
trol 9
12.2 Practical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
7.1 Theoretical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
7.2 Practical goals . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 13 Conclusion 15

EE380-Controls Lab 2 of 15 2013

1 Aim of these control experiments
Reinforce paper-based and PC-based design techniques.
Help students acquire skills in converting design into practical system.

Help each student develop confidence to say,

I can implement control systems in addition to

discussing them theoretically.

EE380-Controls Lab 3 of 15 2013

2 Skills got in converting design to practice
Ability to identify hardware & software needed in a basic control system.
Ability to debug small errors that may show up during practical implementation.

These skills come only through at least a few weeks of work on

problems, all of which may be related to one or two hardware
setups that are not complex, and do not look complex.

EE380-Controls Lab 4 of 15 2013

3 The work bench

Equipment on each bench (top to bottom): Function generator (FG), PC, power supply,
PMDC motor control setup, programmer (PICkit 2).

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4 Tasks common to all experiments

4.1 Simulation
Perform paper-based or PC-based design of controller.
Perform PC-based simulation of CL system using GNU Octave.

4.2 Realization on hardware

Utilize the various components of an integrated development environment (IDE) editor,
compiler, linker, debugger, and programmer to program a C.
Program controller using C language into C.
Monitoring/Recording: read data into PC from C using UART modules.

4.3 Analysis
Compare actual performance with predicted performance.

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5 Block diagram of experimental setup
Vs
DB i

pmdc motor
Other components
PWM

H-bridge
board
PC GPIO

PICkit 2
USB
ADC
UART QEI

103 F

Encoder
isens
UART Rs

Setup primarily meant to Modules of C required for outside C.

implement speed/position motor control: PWM produces variable duty
control. Timer interrupts mark sam- ratio fixed frequency rectan-
Can use feedback of or pling instants. gular waveform.
= or i or all three. QEI counts pulses from UART helps talk with serial
PC Personal Computer. quadrature encoder. port of PC.
DB dsPIC board. ADC reads analog inputs from
EE380-Controls Lab 7 of 15 2013
6 List of experiments
All experiments organized around a PMDC motor.

1. Modeling, identification, speed control

2. Speed tracks a reference sinusoid
3. Ziegler-Nichols tuning of speed controller
4. Speed control using feedback of current
5. Current control
6. Disturbance observer

EE380-Controls Lab 8 of 15 2013

7 Ex.1: Modeling, identification, speed control
7.1 Theoretical goals 7.2 Practical goals
T.1) Model a PMDC motor. P.1) Determine values of parameters of motor
model using datasheets.
T.2) Design speed controller using Bode plot-
based loop-shaping to satisfy ts, Mp, ess. P.2) Identify plant models parameters experi-
mentally using open-loop step response.
T.3) Simulate digital control of a continuous-
time plant. Tweak loop gain on semilog P.3) Implement controller practically on exper-
paper until spec-s met in simulation. imental setup.
?
u ua 1 Vr
VS PWM H-bridge Motor

d + e(k) u(k)
CON ? H-bridge motor

(k) Computation QEI QE
of count module pulses

EE380-Controls Lab 9 of 15 2013

8 Ex.2: Speed tracks a reference sinusoid

8.1 Theoretical goals

T.1) Identify the model using a least squares estimation.
T.2) Design speed controller for identified model using Bode plot-based loop-shaping.

8.2 Practical goals

P.1) Identify parameters of a 2nd order model of plant using a least squares estimation.
P.2) Recognize effect of dead zone nonlinearity.
P.3) Implement speed controller practically.
P.4) Obtain sinusoid to be tracked from a FG through ADC of dsPIC into program.

Where do we want to track sinusoids in practice?

EE380-Controls Lab 10 of 15 2013

9 Ex.3: Ziegler-Nichols tuning of speed controller

9.1 Theoretical goals

T.1) Apply root locus method to estimate critical period Tcr and critical gain kcr of a closed-
loop system under proportional control,
T.2) Apply ultimate gain ZNT to select parameters of a PID controller of speed of a modified
PMDC motor unit.

9.2 Practical goals

P.1) Determine experimentally values of Tcr and kcr,
P.2) Implement PID controller practically on setup.

b
u 29 u Vr
H(s) = 2
s +10s+29 ? H-bridge Motor

EE380-Controls Lab 11 of 15 2013

10 Ex.4: Speed control using feedback of current

10.1 Practical goal

Control speed of motor using feedback of estimate bi of armature current i.

d + u ua 1 H-bridge
CON VS PWM motor
combination

b
1
+ isens
Kb R ()
bi

Where useful?

Know a way to keep loop working if encoder breaks down.

EE380-Controls Lab 12 of 15 2013

11 Ex.5 Current control

11.1 Theoretical goal

Design a proportional integral controller for armature current to be well-regulated.

11.2 Practical goals

P.1) Implement a current controller.
P.2) Implement controller in the microcontroller.
P.3) Examine connections between the dsPIC board and H-bridge board.

id + u Vr + 1 i T+ 1
Ki (s) ?H R Kt Js+B

TL
Kb

EE380-Controls Lab 13 of 15 2013

12 Ex.6: Disturbance observer

12.1 Theoretical goals

T.1) Become familiar with concept of two degrees-of-freedom controllers (2DOF-C),
T.2) Become familiar with a simple but effective disturbance observer (DOB).

12.2 Practical goals

P.1) Use disturbance observer for disturbance rejection.
P.2) Weighing machine: Use a 2DOF-C with a DOB to estimate mass of a load.

Part implemented in Ex.5 TL

d + id + + u + 1 i T + 1
K (s) Ki (s) R Kt Js+B

+ Kb
biL
1
y1 + b B
Js+ b
s+1 b
Rg y2 Kt ( s+1)

gr
bt
K
b
m TbL

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13 Conclusion
Students find this lab challenging, confusing.
But, develop key skills. Student feedback from 2011: I can . . .
Responses
Activity When Mean
1 2 3 4 5
Before 45 20 21 9 8 2.18
Discretize controller, and code in C
After 2 4 16 35 44 4.14
Before 16 13 30 28 14 3.11
Explain what a given C program does
After 1 4 13 42 41 4.17
Before 47 9 17 12 15 2.39
Compile a project file, and burn .hex file into C
After 2 1 13 32 53 4.32
Read data from C through UART into PC, and Before 48 21 13 8 10 2.32
plot using GNU Octave After 1 2 8 35 53 4.38
Troubleshoot simple problems that arise in control Before 39 34 12 15 0 2.03
systems After 1 9 32 40 17 3.64
Know which components go into a PMDC motor Before 33 38 18 8 3 2.10
control system After 0 9 33 42 17 3.66
Before 56 23 15 5 2 1.75
Build a PMDC motor control system on your own
After 4 12 37 28 18 3.44

Manavaalan Gunasekaran and Ramprasad Potluri. Low-cost undergraduate control systems experiments using
microcontroller-based control of a dc motor. IEEE Transactions on Education, vol. 55, No. 4, November 2012.

EE380-Controls Lab 15 of 15 2013