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Working or Operation of PID Controller

The document discusses PID controllers which are commonly used in industrial control systems. PID controllers combine proportional, integral and derivative control actions to achieve both good transient response and reduced steady state error. The proportional control output is directly proportional to the current error, the integral control output reduces steady state error over time by accumulating error over time, and the derivative control output responds to the rate of change of the error. Together these three control actions allow PID controllers to achieve both fast and stable control of process variables like temperature, flow and pressure.

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john glenn magno
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83 views

Working or Operation of PID Controller

The document discusses PID controllers which are commonly used in industrial control systems. PID controllers combine proportional, integral and derivative control actions to achieve both good transient response and reduced steady state error. The proportional control output is directly proportional to the current error, the integral control output reduces steady state error over time by accumulating error over time, and the derivative control output responds to the rate of change of the error. Together these three control actions allow PID controllers to achieve both fast and stable control of process variables like temperature, flow and pressure.

Uploaded by

john glenn magno
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Working or Operation of PID Controller

In manual control, the operator may periodically read the process variable (that has to
be controlled such as temperature, flow, speed, etc.) and adjust the control variable
(which is to be manipulated in order to bring control variable to prescribed limits such as
a heating element, flow valves, motor input, etc.). On the other hand, in automatic
control, measurement and adjustment are made automatically on a continuous basis.

All modern industrial controllers are of automatic type (or closed loop controllers), which
are usually made to produce one or combination of control actions. These control
actions include
 ON-OFF Controller
 Proportional Controller
 Proportional-Integral Controller
 Proportional-Derivative Controller
 Proportional-Integral-Derivative Controller
In case of ON-OFF controller, two states are possible to control the manipulated
variable, i.e., either fully ON (when process variable is below the set point) or Fully OFF
(when process variable is above the set point). So the output will be of oscillating in
nature. In order to achieve the precise control, most industries use the PID controller (or
PI or PD depends on the application). Let us look at these control actions.
P-Controller

Proportional control or simply P-controller produces the control output proportional to


the current error. Here the error is the difference between the set point and process
variable (i.e., e = SP – PV). This error value multiplied by the proportional gain (Kc)
determines the output response, or in other words proportional gain decides the ratio of
proportional output response to error value.
For example, the magnitude of the error is 20 and Kc is 4 then proportional response
will be 80. If the error value is zero, controller output or response will be zero. The
speed of the response (transient response) is increased by increasing the value of
proportional gain Kc. However, if Kc is increased beyond the normal range, process
variable starts oscillating at a higher rate and it will cause instability of the system.
Although P-controller provides stability of the process variable with good speed of
response, there will always be an error between the set point and actual process
variable. Most of the cases, this controller is provided with manual reset or biasing in
order to reduce the error when used alone. However, zero error state cannot be
achieved by this controller. Hence there will always be a steady state error in the p-
controller response as shown in figure.

I-Controller

 Integral controller or I-controller is mainly used to reduce the steady state


error of the system. The integral component integrates the error term over a
period of time until the error becomes zero. This results that even a small error
value will cause to produce high integral response. At the zero error condition,
it holds the output to the final control device at its last value in order to
maintain
 zero steady state error, but in case of P-controller, output is zero when the
error is zero.
If the error is negative, the integral response or output will be decreased. The speed of

response is slow (means respond slowly) when I-controller alone used, but improves
the steady state response. By decreasing the integral gain Ki, the speed of the
response is increased.
For many applications, proportional and integral controls are combined to achieve good
speed of response (in case of P controller) and better steady state response (in case of
I controller). Most often PI controllers are used in industrial operation in order to
improve transient as well as steady state responses. The responses of only I-control,
only p-control and PI control are shown in below figure.
D- Controller Response
A derivative controller (or simply D-Controller) sees how fast process variable
changes per unit of time and produce the output proportional to the rate of change. The
derivative output is equal to the rate of change of error multiplied by a derivative
constant. The D-controller is used when the processor variable starts to change at a
high rate of speed.
In such case, D-controller moves the final control device (such as control valves
or motor) in such direction as to counteract the rapid change of a process variable. It is
to be noted that D-controller alone cannot be used for any control applications.

The derivative action increases the speed of the response because it gives a kick start
for the output, thus anticipates the future behavior of the error. The more rapidly D-
controller responds to the changes in the process variable, if the derivative term is large
(which is achieved by increasing the derivative constant or time Td).
In most of the PID controllers, D-control response depends only on process variable,
rather than error. This avoids spikes in the output (or sudden increase of output) in case
of sudden set point change by the operator. And also most control systems use less
derivative time td, as the derivative response is very sensitive to the noise in the
process variable which leads to produce extremely high output even for a small amount

of noise.
Therefore, by combining proportional, integral, and derivative control responses, a PID
controller is formed. A PID controller finds universal application; however, one must
know the PID settings and tune it properly to produce the desired output. Tuning means
the process of getting an ideal response from the PID controller by setting optimal gains
of proportional, integral and derivative parameters.

There are different methods of tuning the PID controller so as to get desired response.
Some of these methods include trial and error, process reaction curve technique and
Zeigler-Nichols method. Most popularly Zeigler-Nichols and trial and error methods are
used.

This is about the PID controller and its working. Due to the simplicity of controller
structure, PID controllers are applicable for a variety of processes. And also it can be
tuned for any process, even without knowing detailed mathematical model of process.
Some of the applications include, PID controller based motor speed control,
temperature control, pressure control, flow control, level of the liquid, etc.

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