Course overview
This course covers a variety of advanced topics in automatic control system design with a focus on PID control. Major topics include: system identification for low-order systems, frequency domain analysis of stability and sensitivity, and PID tuning laws and their derivation. Techniques used to analyse and accommodate uncertainty and disturbances in practical systems are taught. Matlab/Simulink is the programming environment used to design and analyse the control systems both theoretically and using hands-on control system apparatus in the lab. Students attend weekly face-to-face laboratory sessions to learn control systems by building them from scratch with a variety of apparatus. Remote students undertake equivalent modules in a virtual Matlab environment.
Course learning outcomes
- Explain and generalise key concepts in the field of automatic control
- Design a plant using both time domain and frequency methods, both theoretically and on real plant equipment
- Design a given plant, both without and with a control system, disturbances, and measurement noise
- Design and tune a PID controller using standard approaches
- Assess and modify a generalised control system for performance, stability, and robustness
- Apply signal processing and control system design in hardware for controlling real plant equipment