Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

Performance Specifications

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 Tracking System

A tracking system is a control system that creates an output

that tracks (follows) the input to some level of tolerance.

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 Tracking System

Natural component dies out with a time constant of 0.5 sec

leaving the forced response component .

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 Tracking System

• The system tracks the slowly varying arbitrary input

reasonably well.
• When the reference input is varying quickly, the tracking is
poor.

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 Qualities of a Good Tracking System

Natural response of a good tracking

system decays rapidly and without
excessive fluctuations

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 Natural Response, Relative Stability & Damping

The relative stability of a system is the distance into the left half
of the complex plane from the imaginary axis to the nearest
characteristic root or roots.

• The system with

characteristic
poles has a
relative stability
of 2 units.

The most slowly decaying term in this system’s natural response

component decays as exp(-2t).
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 Natural Response, Relative Stability & Damping

For a natural response to decay at least as quickly as exp(-σt), a

system must have a relative stability of at least σ units.

The black zone indicates the region of greater relative stability

than σ.
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 Natural Response, Relative Stability & Damping

A pair of complex Damped oscillatory

conjugate term in natural
characteristic roots response

• The damping ratio of such a term is ξ = cosΦ where Φ is the

damping angle.
• A low damping ratio is undesired for most tracking systems.
WHY?
• Best Damping Ratio?

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 Natural Response, Relative Stability & Damping

Requirements of
damping ratio and
relative stability
combined

• Often the choice of damping angle Φ = 45 is made

corresponding to a damping ratio of 0.707.
• The characteristic roots should be within the maximum
damping angle Φ so that the oscillatory terms in the natural
component of the response are damped quickly.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

Determine the relative stability of the systems with

following transfer functions. Also determine the damping
ratios of any complex conjugate pairs of characteristic
roots.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

Determine the relative stability of the systems with

following transfer functions. Also determine the damping
ratios of any complex conjugate pairs of characteristic
roots.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

Determine the relative stability of the systems with

following transfer functions. Also determine the damping
ratios of any complex conjugate pairs of characteristic
roots.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

Determine the relative stability of the systems with

following transfer functions. Also determine the damping
ratios of any complex conjugate pairs of characteristic
roots.

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 Forced Response

Steady State Error

The error between the output and input of the system is
given as:

The error between the output and input of the system has
the transmittance

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 Forced Response

Steady State Error

The forced part of the error signal is

• If the system output tracks a reference input r(t) well,

then eforced(t) will be small.

• For perfect tracking

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 Forced Response

Steady State Errors to power of time inputs

The standard ith degree power of time inputs have Laplace
transform as:

The corresponding time functions are the unit step, unit

ramp, half the unit parabola

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 Forced Response

Steady State Errors to power of time inputs

If the input to the tracking system is a power of time input,
the error signal is gives as:

The error will consist of

•Natural response term (coming from the poles of TE(s))
•Forced response term (through the ith degree term)

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Possible Steady State Behaviors

For a stable system driven by power of time inputs the

forced component of error can do only one of three things:

• The forced error can be zero

• The forced error can be constant
• The forced error can involve a non zero term proportional
to “t” or higher powers of “t”

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 Initial & Final Values

Initial value
The initial value of function of time y(t) is related to
function’s Laplace transform by

The initial value of the function with Laplace Transform

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Initial & Final Values

Final value
The final value of function of time y(t) is related to
function’s Laplace transform by final value theorem

For the final value of y(t) to exist, all denominator roots of

Y(s) must be in the left half plane except possibly for one
root at s = 0.

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 Initial & Final Values

Applications of Initial and Final value Theorems

to representative Laplace Transform Terms
Transform Time Function Initial Value Final Value
Y(s) y(t), t>0

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 Possible Steady State Behaviors

Example (Case I)

Stable??

The error to the unit step input is

The final value is

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 Possible Steady State Behaviors

Example (Case II)

The error to the unit ramp input is

The final value is

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 Possible Steady State Behaviors

Example (Case III)

The error to the standard parabolic input is

The final value is

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 Drill Problems

For the following system, the input R(s) is a unit step. Find
the steady state value of the output signal Y(s) if it exists.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For the following system, the input R(s) is a unit step. Find
the steady state value of the output signal Y(s) if it exists.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For the following system, the input R(s) is a unit step. Find
the steady state value of the output signal Y(s) if it exists.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For the following system, find steady state errors if they

exist, between input and output for unit step, ramp and
parabolic inputs.

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 System Type Number

• Number of factors of “s” in the numerator of the error

transmittance TE(s) is called the type number of the
system.
• If TE(s) has no factor of “s” in the numerator, the type
number is zero.
• Steady state error to step input for this system with type
number zero is given as:

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 Step Response of Type-0 System

Finite steady state error can be observed in the step

response of type zero system

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 Response of Type - 0 System to a Ramp

• Higher power of “t” inputs give infinite steady state error

• For example if we have ramp input i.e.

eramp

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 Responses of Type-1 System

• If the system is stable and TE(s) has one factor of “s” in

the numerator, the type number is one.
• Steady state error to step input for this system with type
number one is zero.

• Steady state error to ramp input for the type one system
is constant.

• Higher power of “t” inputs give infinite steady state error

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 Response of Type-1 System to a Ramp

Finite steady state error can be observed in ramp response

of type one system

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 Responses of Type-2 System

• If TE(s) has a factor of “s2” in the numerator, the type

number is two.
• Steady state error to step input for this system with type
number two is zero.
• Steady state error to ramp input for type 2 system is
zero
• Steady state error to parabolic input for type 2 system is
constant.
• Steady state error to higher power of “t” inputs for type
2 system is ever increasing.

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 Response of Type-2 System to Parabolic
Input
Finite steady state error can be observed for parabolic
input in type one system

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 Tabular Representation of System Types &
Responses

System Steady State Steady State Steady State Steady State

Error Error Error Error
Type Step Input Ramp Input Parabolic Input r(t) =

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 Predicting the Steady State Error

• When the power of time (in input) exceeds the type

number, the input wins, and the steady state error is
infinite.
• When the type number exceeds the power of time (in
input) the system wins, and the steady state error is
zero.
• When the type number equals power of time (in input),
there is a tie between system and the input, and the
steady state error is some constant.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Unity Feedback Systems &
System Type Number
• When a control system has unity feedback, the input “r”
and output “y” are compared directly.

• The error signal drives the forward transmittance G(s)

and system type is determined by the number of s = 0
numerator roots of TE(s).

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Unity Feedback Systems &
System Type Number
If G(s) is the ratio of the polynomials

then

• For a unity feedback system, the system type can be

determined by the number of s = 0 denominator roots of
the transmittance G(s).

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Non-Unity Feedback Systems &
System Type Number
• The non-unity feedback
system can be
transformed into unity
feed back system and
system type number
can be obtained by the
number of s = 0
denominator roots of
the transmittance GE(s).

• The system type number of non-unity feedback system

should be obtained by using the TE(s) approach.

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 Raising the System Type Number

Consider the following unity feedback system

• The difference b/w input & output is being calculated,

amplified and given to the plant to reduce the difference
of output and input.
• The system transfer function is

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 Raising the System Type Number

For a step input

Error between input and output is

Error reaches a steady state for any K > -2

Choosing sufficiently large K, the error can be made small

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 Raising the System Type Number

For a ramp, parabolic and higher power of “t” inputs, the

error for this system becomes infinite. For example for
ramp input

For parabolic input

s3

s3

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 Raising the System Type Number

A simple method of obtaining zero steady state error for

step input is to drive a plant with a signal proportional to
integral of the error

This places an s = 0 pole in system’s forward transmittance

raising the type number.
The transfer function for this system becomes

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 Raising the System Type Number

For the step input, the new error signal is

The steady state error for any positive K is

For ramp input, the steady state error is

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 Drill Problems

Find output-input error transmittance of the following

system. Determine the system type number, and steady
state errors to unit step and unit ramp inputs.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

Find output-input error transmittance of the following

system. Determine the system type number, and steady
state errors to unit step and unit ramp inputs.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For unity feedback systems with the following forward

transmittance, determine system type number and if the
system reaches steady state, find steady state input-output
error to unit step and unit ramp input.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For unity feedback systems with the following forward

transmittance, determine system type number and if the
system reaches steady state, find steady state input-output
error to unit step and unit ramp input.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For unity feedback systems with the following forward

transmittance, determine system type number and if the
system reaches steady state, find steady state input-output
error to unit step and unit ramp input.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Drill Problems

For unity feedback systems with the following forward

transmittance, determine system type number and if the
system reaches steady state, find steady state input-output
error to unit step and unit ramp input.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 Assignment 3

Find output-input error transmittance of the following

system. Determine the system type number, and steady
state errors to unit step and unit ramp inputs.

For students with even student

numbers
Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering
 Assignment 3

For the following system, the input R(s) is a unit step. Find
the steady state value of the output signal Y(s) if it exists.

For students with odd student

numbers
Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering
 System Sensitivity

• One of the major advantages of feedback is that it can

be used to make the response of a system relatively
independent of certain changes or inaccuracies in plant
model.
• For example consider the following system and its
transfer function

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 System Sensitivity

• Now suppose the plant parameter is wrongly modelled

• For k1 = 1, the plant is same as before but for other
values of k1, the plant pole is perturbed

• 50% Changes in k1
result in minor
changes in T(s).
• Negative values of k1,
for which the plant is
unstable, T(s) is
stable.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 System Sensitivity

• The system steady state error to a unit step input is in

terms of k1

Dominated by the factor of 400 and is nearly proportional to

k1.

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 System Sensitivity

• Now suppose the plant gain is perturbed by k2.

• The transfer function of the system in terms of k2

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 System Sensitivity

• The system steady state error ( between input and

output) to a unit step input is

• The steady state error is dominated by the factor of

400k2 for moderate changes in k2 from the nominal k2 = 1
and is nearly inversely proportional to k2.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering

 System Sensitivity

• Now suppose the sensor gain is perturbed. The transfer

function T(s) is given as:

• The steady state error to a unit step input is:

• The steady state error becomes quite large in comparison

to earlier expressions for comparable percentage
parameter changes.

Control Systems Department of Electrical Engineering