Feedback Control Systems Engineering

Lesson 10: Classical Design in the s-domain

Joshua Natividad
FEEDCON
6 July 2007

Page 1

Objectives
Learn how to determine stability of dynamic systems Familiarize with Routh-Hurwitz stability criterion

References
R. S. Burns (2001), Advanced Control Engineering , USA: ButterworthHeinemann

Stability of Dynamic Systems

The response of a linear system to a stimulus has two components:
steady-state terms which are directly related to the input; and transient terms which are either exponential, or oscillatory with an envelope of exponential form

Stability Defined
If the exponential terms decay as time increases, then the system is said to be stable. If the exponential terms increase as time increases, then the system is said to be unstable.

Stability Examples

System Responses
Which variable does the stability of the system depend on?

System Responses
Stability of a dynamic system depends upon the sign of the exponential index in the time response function, which involves finding real roots of the characteristic equation.

Stability and Roots of the Characteristic Equation

The characteristic equation of a second order system is given by

whose roots are found from

Response from Roots

The roots determine the response of the system,
Overdamping

Critical Damping
Underdamping

Response from Roots

If the coefficient b were to be negative, then the roots would be

Stable Response
Underdamping response, the time response is given as

Unstable Response

Stability

If any of the roots of the characteristic equation have positive real parts, then the system will be unstable.
--The statement is true even for higher ordered systems.

Stability Criterion
Routh (1905) and Hurwitz (1875) gives a method of indicating the presence and number of unstable roots, but not their value.

Routh-Hurwitz
Consider the characteristic equation

Stability Criterion
a) For there to be no roots with positive real parts then there is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition that all coefficients in the characteristic equation have the same sign and that none are zero.

Routh-Hurwitz Criterion
If (a) is satisfied, then the necessary and sufficient condition for stability is either b) All the Hurwitz determinants of the polynomial are positive, or alternatively c) All coefficients of the first column of Rouths array have the same sign. The number of sign changes indicate the number of unstable roots.

Hurwitz Determinants

Routh Arrays

Example
Check the stability of the system which has the following characteristic equation

Test 1: All coefficients are present and have the same sign. Proceed to Test 2.

Example

4th order

Example

3rd order

Example

-4

Example

-4

-4

Example

--0

+16

Example
There are two sign changes in the column therefore there are two roots with positive real parts. Hence, the system is unstable.

Stability of a Closed Loop System

The closed-loop transfer function was determined to be

The zero or roots is determined from the denominator and equated to zero to form the characteristic equation

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

Find the value of K1 such that the system is unstable.

What is the transfer function?

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

What is the transfer function?

The transfer function is

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

The open loop gain constant is

such that the transfer function becomes

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

Since the roots can be found from

the characteristic equation is therefore

Alternative Method

Alternative Method
Start with the definition of the transfer function

with H=1, the transfer function is written as

Alternative Method
Multiply numerator and denominator with

to get

which simplifies into

Alternative Method
Equate the denominator to zero in order to obtain the characteristic equation

BACK

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

The Routh Array is

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

To produce a sign change in the first column, K 2(!). Since K = 8K1, to make the system just unstable, K1 = 0.25.

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

At K = 2, the characteristic equation

becomes

Factorizing yields

Stability of a Closed-Loop System

And the transient response is

Special Cases of the Routh Array

Case 1: A zero in the first column. If there is a zero in the first column, replace that zero with a small number e which could either be positive or negative.

Special Cases of the Routh Array

Case 2: All elements in a row are zero. If all the elements of a row is zero, replace that row with derivatives of an auxiliary polynomial, formed from the elements of the previous row.

BACKUP

Page 41