0% found this document useful (0 votes)
69 views3 pages

6 Gregory K. Mcmillan: N A D K

The document discusses various methods for tuning PID controllers, including relay oscillation and adaptive tuning. Relay oscillation involves injecting a step change into the controller output when the process variable crosses the setpoint, and analyzing the resulting oscillations to determine tuning parameters. Adaptive tuning uses process responses to automatically identify a dynamic model and schedule tuning settings over different operating regions. Both methods aim to provide fast, accurate tuning without requiring a process to reach steady state.

Uploaded by

ms
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
0% found this document useful (0 votes)
69 views3 pages

6 Gregory K. Mcmillan: N A D K

The document discusses various methods for tuning PID controllers, including relay oscillation and adaptive tuning. Relay oscillation involves injecting a step change into the controller output when the process variable crosses the setpoint, and analyzing the resulting oscillations to determine tuning parameters. Adaptive tuning uses process responses to automatically identify a dynamic model and schedule tuning settings over different operating regions. Both methods aim to provide fast, accurate tuning without requiring a process to reach steady state.

Uploaded by

ms
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 3

6 Gregory K.

McMillan

[1,2,4,5,10]. A user-selected step change is injected into the PID output initially
and any time the process variable reverses direction and crosses the setpoint and
the corresponding noise band. The controller action is used to determine if the re-
versal in the process variable is in the correct direction to drive the process vari-
able back to setpoint. The ultimate period (Tu) is the oscillation period. Equation
14-8 is used to compute the ultimate gain (Ku) from the PID output step size (d)
and the process variable amplitude (a) corrected for the noise band (n). Figure 14-
1 shows the relay oscillation method with a large change in the process variable
(PV) for illustrative purposes. For processes with large time constants, the PV am-
plitude (a) is so small, the oscillation is barely perceptible and the oscillation pe-
riod is about 4 deadtimes. Since the more important PID loops, such as tempera-
ture have a large process time constant, the auto tuner provides a test that is less
disruptive and faster than an open loop test that is waiting to reach a new steady
state to identify the process time constant. The time constant identified in relay os-
cillation method is not very accurate. Thus, when the relay oscillation method,
tuning settings based on the ultimate period and ultimate gain are more accurate
than those that require knowledge of the process time constant.

Fig. 14-1 Relay Oscillation Method Offers Fast Tuning Test [24]

4d
Ku = (14-8)
π + a2 − n2

The PID gain is the ultimate gain multiplied by a 0.25 factor [23,25]. The PID
integral time is the ultimate period multiplied by 1.0 factor for self-regulating and
10.0 for non-self-regulating processes [10,23,25]. The PID rate time is the ulti-
mate period multiplied by 0.1 when derivative action is beneficial [10,23,25]. If
14 Industrial Applications of PID Control 7

the ultimate period is less than 3 times the dead time, the rate time should be 0
since the loop is deadtime dominant (deadtime is significantly greater than the
largest time constant in the loop) [10]. If the ultimate period is greater than 4 times
the deadtime, rate time should be used to prevent a runaway since the process may
have positive feedback and an unstable open loop response. These factors are gen-
erally in the direction to provide a non oscillatory PID response that is more robust
(more resistance to excessive oscillations from changes in process dynamics). The
Ziegler-Nichols factors were designed to provide a quarter amplitude response
(amplitude of each succeeding oscillation is ¼ the amplitude of last oscillation).
Most publications on tuning based on the ultimate period and ultimate gain use the
Ziegler-Nichols factors leading to improper conclusions on smoothness and ro-
bustness of the tuning method [10].

Adaptive tuners use a more advanced method to identify process dynamics


without relay oscillations. Significant manual and remote output changes and set-
point changes trigger the search for the dynamic parameters for a first order plus
deadtime approximation (process gain, deadtime, and time constant) that provides
a model’s response that matches the process response. A particular adaptive tuner
computes the integrated squared error (ISE) between the model and the process
output for changes in each of three model parameters from the last best value.
Exploring all combinations of three values (low, middle, and high) for three pa-
rameters, results in 27 models. The correction in each model parameter is interpo-
lated by the application of weighting factors that are based on the ISE for each
model normalized to a total ISE for all the models over the period of interest. Af-
ter the best values are computed for each parameter, they are assigned as the mid-
dle values for the next iteration. This model switching with interpolation and re-
centering has been proven mathematically by the University of California, Santa
Barbara to be equivalent to a least square identification that provides an optimum
approach to the correct model [9,35].

Adaptive tuners schedule tuning settings identified for regions defined by a


user-selected variable. For valves with nonlinear characteristics such as equal per-
centage, the variable for scheduling is the PID’s output. For nonlinear processes,
such as pH, the variable for scheduling is the PID’s process variable. The schedul-
ing provides preemptive correction of the tuning settings eliminating the delay in
performance associated with the re-identification of settings as the PID moves into
another region [9,19,25,35]. For a gravity discharge conical tank, adaptive tuning
made the level setpoint response fast with a consistent settling time over the entire
range of operation by increasing the process time constant as the cross section area
decreased from bottom to top [19]. In this example, the gravity discharge flow
makes the process self-regulating rather than integrating. Consequently, the
nonlinearity of the change in cross sectional area predominantly affects the proc-
ess time constant rather than the process gain. Figure 14-2 shows the models
8 Gregory K. McMillan

automatically identified in five regions for scheduling tuning settings to account


for the changes in cross section with level.

Since an adaptive tuner uses current tuning settings to compute process dynam-
ics as the starting point for its search, the number of tests required to get an adap-
tive model with a high fidelity rating can be minimized by first running the On-
Demand tuner with a requirement of just 2 or 3 cycles. Since the cycle period is on
the average the ultimate period, the test is usually faster than an Adaptive Tuning
test, especially for the overly conservative (sluggish) tuning commonly found in
industrial PID controllers that have not been tuned by an automated method.

The step size in the output for On-Demand and Adaptive Tuning should be at
least: 5 times the noise band, the trigger level of a wireless device, and the dead
band and resolution-sensitivity of the control valve [2]. Note that these step
changes will not show the deadtime from wireless update times and valve back-
lash and stick-slip. For wireless devices, about half of the default update rate
should be added to the identified deadtime [14,23,25,29,30,31,35].

Fig. 14-2 Models Enable Adaptive Level Control of Conical Tank [18]

14.1.3 Positive Feedback Implementation of Integral Mode

Instead of integrating the error, the feeding back of the controller output or ex-
ternal reset signal through a filter block and adding it to the contribution of the
proportional and derivative modes creates an integral mode action where the filter
time constant is the integral time setting [4,25]. When the error is zero, the output

You might also like