Determination of all feasible robust PID controllers for open-loop unstable plus time delay processes with gain margin and phase margin specifications

This paper proposes a novel alternative method to graphically compute all feasible gain and phase margin specifications-oriented robust PID controllers for open-loop unstable plus time delay (OLUPTD) processes. This method is applicable to general OLUPTD processes without constraint on system order. To retain robustness for OLUPTD processes subject to positive or negative gain variations, the downward gain margin (GMdown), upward gain margin (GMup), and phase margin (PM) are considered. A virtual gain-phase margin tester compensator is incorporated to guarantee the concerned system satisfies certain robust safety margins. In addition, the stability equation method and the parameter plane method are exploited to portray the stability boundary and the constant gain margin (GM) boundary as well as the constant PM boundary. The overlapping region of these boundaries is graphically determined and denotes the GM and PM specifications-oriented region (GPMSOR). Alternatively, the GPMSOR characterizes all feasible robust PID controllers which achieve the pre-specified safety margins. In particular, to achieve optimal gain tuning, the controller gains are searched within the GPMSOR to minimize the integral of the absolute error (IAE) or the integral of the squared error (ISE) performance criterion. Thus, an optimal PID controller gain set is successfully found within the GPMSOR and guarantees the OLUPTD processes with a pre-specified GM and PM as well as a minimum IAE or ISE. Consequently, both robustness and performance can be simultaneously assured. Further, the design procedures are summarized as an algorithm to help rapidly locate the GPMSOR and search an optimal PID gain set. Finally, three highly cited examples are provided to illustrate the design process and to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.