Chapter 1

Introduction to Systems
and Control
Introduction

What is a control Everyday, in everything that we do, we want certain

system? “objectives” achieved. For example, when you want to bake
your batter for a chocolate cake at 180ºC in an oven, you set
the “temperature setting” on the control panel of the oven as
180ºC. This is the “objective”. The oven has to have a
control circuit to control the current supply to its heater coil,
according to the measured temperature in the oven chamber,
so that it achieves a “result” of maintaining the chamber
temperature at 180ºC, such that the result meets the
requirement of the objective.
Heater coil
A control circuit controls the
amount of current supplied
to the heater coil, to achieve
the required temperature.

Heat

Figure 1-1
An open-loop control system for electrical oven. A more
practical closed-loop system will be discussed later.

The example above illustrates to us that a control system

usually has the following three constituents:
1. Objectives of control (sometimes known as inputs,
or set-points, or actuating signals)
2. Components of control system
3. Results (also known as outputs, or controlled
variables)

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 Introduction

This can be generalized with the figure below:

Objectives Control Results

System

Figure 1-2
Generalized block diagram of a control system

In this chapter, you will be given an overview of various

types of control system, and also an outline of the scopes of
this module.

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More Examples of Control System Applications

Vehicle Steering Steering a vehicle is easy, right? You want the car to go left,
Control you turn the steering wheel left; you want it to go right, you
turn the steering wheel right. As simple as ABC. So, why do
we need to study control system for vehicle steering
control?
Well, the truth is, it is not as easy as that. The first thing is,
you do not directly turn the car’s front tires with your hand,
right? You turn the steering wheel, which, by connection of
shaft and pinion gear assembly, are connected to the
steering arms of the tires. When the steering wheel is turned
a certain angle, it turns the shaft assembly, which turns the
tires a certain angle. And the angle that the tires turn is not
the same as the angle that you turn the steering with. For
example, you need to turn the steering two full revolutions
(that is a total of 720º) before your tires would turn its full
swing of roughly 40º (a ratio of about 18 to 1). You can say
this amount to a system such as below:

 sw Steering Assembly  tire

Angle turned Angle turned
on the (Gain = 1/18) on the front
steering wheel tires

Figure 1-3
Simplified representation of vehicle steering system
You can say that the system can be simplified to a constant
gain of 1/18.

But then, even when the front tires has turned, the car would
not immediately turn to go in the direction of the tires, due
to the momentum of the car and the slight skidding of the
tires over the road surface.

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

Actual course
Original course

Intended course

5m
10º
4m

Figure 1-4
The car turns at a larger turning radius than expected, due to
the combination of a few factors.

For example, if the car has been going at high speed, thus
gaining huge momentum, and the road is a bit slippery due
to an earlier bout of rain, and the tires’ gripping is
compromised further due to normal wear. So, even though
the driver had turned the tire an angle of 10º to achieve a
turning radius of 4m, the actual turning radius may be
increased to 5m, as shown in Figure 1-4 above. As a result,
from the driver’s input (angle turned on steering wheel) to
the actual outcome of the vehicle’s course of travel, we have
to include consideration of the overall dynamic of the car
(that includes such things as the weight of the car, the speed
of the car at the moment, the condition of the tires, the
condition of the road, the wind speed, etc.), as shown below:

 sw Steering  tire Overall r turn

Assembly dynamic of Actual turning
(Gain = the vehicle radius of the
1/18)
vehicle

Figure 1-5
Overall representation of the vehicle steering control

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

What is challenging in the study of this system is that, you

cannot pin down this system (the overall dynamic of the car)
to some fix numbers. The dynamic changes from time to
time. The car may carry different amount of load. The tire
wears out further everyday. The weather changes everyday.
Every stretch of road is different from another.

So, when you really sit and consider the vehicle steering
system, you will find many things worth studying from the
control-engineering point of view.
In fact, even the steering assembly discussed earlier is not in
practice as easy as just a simply gain block of 1/18. The
actual system is subjected to a few other factors. For the
first part, there will be some small amount of time-delay –
though very small – between the turning of the steering
wheel and the turning of the tires. Such delays may be small
enough to dismiss in the engineering consideration for
steering control, but for other systems, time delay may be a
serious consideration (take the next example on printwheel
for instance).

And then there would be minor torsion on the steering shaft,

depending in turn on a few other factors such as the
materials used for the shaft, the load on the vehicle and the
tires’ grip on the road surface.

And there is also the consideration that when turning to the

left, the front left tire, being on the inner turn radius, need to
turn a sharper angle than the front right tire, because when a
car makes a turn, the tire on the inner side turns a smaller

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 More Examples of Control System Applications
radius than the outer tire. It is the same when turning right,
that is, the right tire has to make a sharper turn than the left.
So, the relationship between the steering wheel’s turning
angle and the tires’ turning angle is rendered non-linear, and
symmetrically opposite.
Now, the design of steering mechanism does not seem that
easy anymore, right? You will be amazed at the amount of
science that goes into the design of the simplest control
device

Printwheel An electronic typewriter (or word processor) uses a

Control System printwheel (or “daisy wheel”, because its 100 or so spokes
look kind of like flower petals) to print letters onto your
paper.
How this works is roughly like this: a printwheel has 96 or
100 spokes extending from the center-wheel, each bearing
the type for a different letter or character or number. When a
letter is required, the wheel is turned until the spoke bearing
the type of that particular letter comes to rest between a
hammer and the inked ribbon, then the hammer presses
down on the type, which imprints the letter onto the paper
beneath the inked ribbon.

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

Keyboard

Micro-controller

Power
Amplifier

Hammer
dc Motor Actuator

Hammer
Printwheel

Figure 1-6
Simplified illustration of how printwheel operates

 Typist types a character on the keyboard.

 Micro-controller recognizes character pressed on
keyboard, calculates the angle the printwheel needs to
turn.
 A signal is sent to power amplifier to trigger the driving
current for a specific duration of time, according to the
required angle.
 Power amplifier provides the dc motor with the required
amount of current for the required duration of time to
turn it the required angle.

The dc motor turns the printwheel attached to it. The

printwheel turns until the required type rests at the hammer
position. The hammer is actuated by a separate signal from
the micro-controller.

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

For example, Let us say at first the type for letter “A” is
resting at the hammer position. Then the typist typed the
letter “T”. So, the micro-controller in the electronic
typewriter would calculate the angle the wheel needs to
turn, then send a signal to the power amplifier that in turn
drives the wheel, to turn it for a specific duration of time
until the type for “T” comes to the hammer position, then
another signal is sent to the hammer’s actuator to press the
hammer down to imprint the letter “T” through the inked
ribbon onto the paper.

Now, let us get down to a bit more details. Let us assume

that we have a printwheel that has 100 characters, so that the
angle between each character is 3.6º, and it can turn 5
revolutions per second at maximum speed. That roughly
means rotating from one character to the immediate next
character would take about 2 ms (0.002 s). Assuming also
that the hammer takes 1 ms to hammer the type down, and
that at the beginning, the wheel rests with the letter “A” at
the hammer, we can roughly calculate the time required to
complete the printing of the word “BAD” as below:
To turn from “A” to “B” 2 ms
To hammer down “B” 1 ms
To turn from “B” back to “A”2 ms
To hammer down “A” 1 ms
To turn from “A” to “D” 6 ms
To hammer down “D” 1 ms
--------------------
Total 13 ms

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

Assuming the output of the power amplifier to be width-

modulated pulses, we could even illustrate the process with
the diagram below:

Amplifier current

IA
0 Time (ms)
0 5 10
-IA
(a)
Position of printwheel

10.8º

7.2º

3.6º

0º Time (ms)
0 5 10
(b)

Figure 1-7
The process of the printwheel printing the word “BAD” with relation to
time.
(a) The current output from power amplifier to drive the dc motor that
turns the printwheel.
(b) Position of the printwheel.

Based on what you may observe from Figure 1-7, you

might very easily point out that the relationship between the
duration of current applied to the dc motor and the position
of the printwheel is a linear relationship of every one
millisecond of current driving to every 1.8º change in
position.

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

However, things are not quite so easy, as always. We should

not forget that the dc motor winding is inductive, and the
motor shaft and the printwheel both have inertia. This
means the printwheel cannot start moving immediately
when current is applied to the dc motor, and also it would

need some time at start-up to accelerate, and again some

time to decelerate before coming to a full stop. And because
of the inertia of the rotating parts, when coming to a halt
there will be a short duration of vibration before the moving
parts come to complete rest. So, a more realistic look at the
first 3 milliseconds of the process is as below:
Amplifier current

IA
0 Time (ms)
0 1 2 3
-IA
(a)
Position of printwheel

3.6º

0º Time (ms)
0 1 2 3
(b)
Figure 1-8
A more realistic look at the first 3 ms of the process of rotating the
printwheel.
(a) The current from the amplifier driving the dc motor.
(b) The actual movement of the printwheel.

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 More Examples of Control System Applications

As you can see from Figure 1-7(b), that there would

actually be some delay due to the need to overcome the
inertia of the moving parts, and the actual movement of 3.6º
took slightly longer than 2 ms, and furthermore, it would
bounce around a little bit before actually coming to a full
stop. Hence, the micro-controller might actually need to
wait another 1 ms before sending the signal to the hammer
to strike down on the type.

Conclusions on The two examples above demonstrated the basic ideas of

Given Examples control, some of the basic objectives of control engineering
design (for example, using an actuating signal to actuate the
subsequent process), and some of the common difficulties
and complications involved (for example, the time delay,
the inertia of the loads, the dynamic nature of some
properties, etc.).

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Open-Loop Control Systems

Overview The printwheel of an electronic typewriter discussed in the

previous section is an example of open-loop control
system. The controller of an open-loop system performs
simply the task of issuing the actuating signal to the process
being controlled, without checking the results to make sure
it fulfills the objectives of control.

r a Process c
Reference Controller Actuating being Controlled
input signal controlled variable
(control (output)
objective)

Figure 1-9
Generalized open-loop control system

The disadvantage of an open-loop control system is that,

there is no way to make sure the system output has met the
requirement set by the reference input (the control
objective). For instance, in the printwheel example, there is
no checking done on whether the printwheel has indeed
correctly moved to the required position before the hammer
makes the strike. If the movement of the printwheel is not
accurate, the printing will turn out misaligned. So, we can
clearly see that actually the printwheel control system is not
suitable to be implemented as an open-loop system. We will
discuss this further in the next section.

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 Open-Loop Control Systems

Open-loop control system does have, nonetheless, its

advantages, namely its simplicity and it’s being economical.
It is suitable for non-critical applications, for example, the
motor controller in a semi-automatic washing machine.
Human user determines all the speed of spin washing, the
amount of water, and the washing time. The term “non-
critical” means that the accuracy of the outcome does not
affect much the fulfillment of user’s requirement nor does it
causes any danger. For example, it is not critical if the
spinning speed is a few revolutions faster or slower. The
purpose is mainly to spin the washtub to rub the clothes
together to achieve the cleaning effect.

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Closed-Loop Control Systems (Feedback Control Systems)

Overview As mentioned before, it does not befit that the printwheel

control system has no means of checking whether the
printwheel has indeed turned to its required position before
the hammer strikes down on the type. This problem can be
solved by the addition of a position sensor. The position
sensor will sense the actual position of the printwheel and
feedback this information to the micro-controller.

The micro-controller will compare the actual position

measured by the position sensor to the required position
according to its calculation, and make the necessary
adjustment (by sending out the appropriate actuating
signals) until there is not error (difference) between the
actual position and the desired position.

Printwheel
Hammer

Hammer dc Motor
Actuator

Power Position
Amplifier Sensor

Micro-controller

Keyboard

Figure 1-10
Printwheel control system with feedback

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 Closed-Loop Control Systems (Feedback Control Systems)

 The position sensor detects the position of the

printwheel.
 The position sensor decodes the position as a binary data
to be fed back to the micro-controller.
 The micro-controller compares the actual position to the
position it desired to reach, and makes proper
adjustment.

Generally, a closed-loop control system encompasses the

following components:

Figure 1-11 Disturbance, N

Generalized
Set point, Error, E Output,
closed-loop
++
C R
control system. +- Controller Process
When assumed
with ideal
conditions, it is
very commonly
Feedback, F
Measurement Device
without the
Disturbance, N.

Risking over-simplification, we can conclude on the advantage

of closed-loop control system as being able to correct its output
such that the results are much more accurate compared to open-
loop control system.
However, feedback has more effects on the system than
just the reduction of output error. The following section
discusses a number of other important effects feedback has on a
control system.

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Effects of Feedback

Feedback also affects a system on such performance

characteristics as stability, bandwidth, overall gain,
disturbance and sensitivity.
Stability – A feedback designed improperly can cause an
originally stable system to become unstable, while a
carefully designed feedback can improve stability for an
originally unstable system. Things to be considered
include the gain of the feedback and the phase
relationship between the feedback signal and the input
signal, both usually functions off frequency. More
detailed discussions of this can be found in Chapter 3
and in Chapter 5.

Overall gain and bandwidth – feedback can increase or

decrease the overall gain of the system, depending on
the gain of the feedback block and whether the feedback
is in-phase or out of phase compared to the input signal.
Again, these are functions of frequency, so that at one
frequency, a feedback could increase the system gain,
while at another frequency, the same feedback could
decrease the system gain. You will see the effect of this
when we discuss about transfer function and gain-
versus-frequency curve (Bode gain plot) in Chapter 2.

Sensitivity – No system can maintain all its characteristics and

parameters to be constant at all time. Most components
or materials have characteristics that change according
to one environmental condition or another. Some are
sensitive to temperature, some to moisture, some to
vibrations, some to illumination, and all are subject to
wear and tear.

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 Effects of Feedback

Systems should be designed to be as insensitive

(impervious) to such fluctuations of characteristics and
parameters as possible. The relationship between
feedback and sensitivity will not be discussed in detail
in this module.

Disturbances or noise – all physical systems are exposed to

various types of disturbances or noise, for example,
internal noise such as thermal noise in electronic
circuits and brush noise in electric motor, to external
noise such as cosmic radiation or wind-gust acting on
an antenna. Systems should be designed to be
insensitive to noise and disturbances. The relationship
between feedback and noise will also not be discussed
in detail in this module.

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Classification of Control Systems

Control systems are classified according to the purpose of

classification. In this section, we will discuss about some of the
classifications, and also to outline the scope of our study.

Generally, when classified according to method of

analysis and design. Control systems could be classified as
either linear or non-linear systems, if we are concerned about
the linearity of input-output relationship for a system. On the
other hand, they could also be classified as either time varying
or time-invariant, if we are concern about whether the
parameters of the system change according to time.

Linear vs. A linear system means the relationship between the

Non-linear input and output of the system can be described by a straight-
line graph (a directly or inversely proportional relationship). As
opposed to this, the relationship between the input and output
of non-linear system cannot be represented with straight lines.

But in this world, there is really no system that is

completely linear. Some things do exhibit linearity, but only
within certain range of operation. For example, an amplifier
may exhibit linearity within certain range of operating voltage.
Beyond the range, there will be saturation effects.

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 Classification of Control Systems

Output (V)
Figure 1-12
+Vs
Amplifiers only
exhibit linearity
within certain
range of
operating
voltage. 0
Input (mV)

-Vs

Non-linear
Linear
region

region
Non-linear
region
Saturation

Saturation
region

region
Our study in this module will only be concerned about linear
systems, by assuming that we always keep within the linear
operating range of a fundamentally linear system, or by
linearizing a non-linear system around a nominal operating
point.

Time-varying In practice, most systems are time varying, where the

vs. Time- characteristics of some of the elements either vary with time or
invariant stray from the initial value or deteriorate (wear) with time. For
example, guided missile control system, whereby the mass of
the missile reduces with time with the fuel is burned up.

Generally, the design and analysis of time-varying

systems are much more complicated compared to time-
invariant systems. Our study in this module is limited to time-
invariant systems only.

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 Classification of Control Systems

Another method of classifying control systems is

according to the types of signal used in the system. In the most
general sense, we could classify systems as either continuous
data systems or discrete data systems.

Continuous Continuous data systems have input and feedback

Data vs. signals as the continuous time variable, t. This kind of systems
Discrete Data is further categorized as ac (modulated signals) and dc
(unmodulated signals) control systems.

Being called dc control systems does not mean the

signals in the systems are actual dc signals (unidirectional,
basically constant); the signals in “dc” control systems are
actually ac signals, which can be positive, can be negative, and
fluctuates according to the system adjustments. They are called
“dc” control to contrast with ac control that uses modulated
signals.
One disadvantage with dc control systems is that the
signals are susceptible to low frequency noise. This can be
overcome by modulating the actual signals with carrier
frequencies of 400 Hz or higher. This is called ac (modulated
signals) control system.

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 Classification of Control Systems

Error, E Error, E
Unmodulated signal Modulated signal

Set point, Output,

C R
+- Controller Process

Feedback, F Measurement Device

Figure 1-13
Comparison between signals in a dc control system
(unmodulated signals) and an ac control system (modulated signals).

Diagram above illustrates how an error signal in a closed-loop

control system can either be represented as is (unmodulated,
that is, in a dc control system) or amplitude-modulated (in an ac
control system).

There are two major types of discrete data systems:

sampled-data systems, and digital control systems. Sampled-
data systems are not much different from any continuous data
systems, except the signals in the systems are not processed
continuously, but rather as time-hold samples.

Original signal Sampled signals

Figure 1-14
A continuous
signal being
sampled into
sampled signals. Sampler
 Classification of Control Systems

One major importance of using sampled signals is that some

expensive equipment can be time-shared among a few similar
control systems requiring the same signal feed.

Digital control systems are systems controlled using

digital computers or controllers. Signals in this type of systems
are digitally coded signals such as binary codes, ASCII codes,
etc. The printwheel control system mentioned earlier is partly
digital control system, as the signals into and out of the
microprocessor are digitally coded signals.

This module encompasses only the study of continuous

data system, mostly dc (unmodulated signals) control systems.

In summary, our study in this module will only be concerned

with systems that exhibit the following characteristics:
 Linear (or can be linearized satisfactorily)
 Time-invariant
 Continuous data
 Single variable (usually time, t)

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Revision Exercises

Review 1-1. What are the three constituents common to all control
Questions systems?

1-2. Is this statement true? “The time-delay effects can be

ignored in all control systems”

1-3. According to Figure 1-6, there are two actuators in the

printwheel system. Can you name them both?

1-4. State the advantages and disadvantages of open-loop

control system.

1-5. Is this statement true? “If an open-loop system is

unstable, implementing feedback will always make it
stable”.

1-6. How is an ac control system different from a dc control

system?

1-7. State the two types of discrete data systems.

Answers to 1-2. False.

Selected 1-3. Motor and hammer actuator.
Questions
1-5. False.

1-7. Sampled-data systems and digital systems.

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