Performance improvement of PI controllers through dynamic set-point weighting

Responses of high-order systems under Ziegler-Nichols tuned PI controllers (ZNPIs) are characterized by excessive oscillation with a large overshoot. Although, a fixed set-point weighting based PI controller (FSWPI) may decrease the overshoot considerably, it fails to reduce the oscillation in the set-point response. Moreover, both FSWPI and ZNPI exhibit equally poor load regulation. Keeping in mind an overall improved performance, we propose an online dynamic set-point weighting technique for ZNPIs. The dynamic set-point weighting factor (βd) is heuristically derived from the instantaneous process trend. Performance of the proposed dynamic set-point weighting based PI controller (DSWPI) for various second- and third-order processes including a pH process shows a significant improvement during both the set-point and load disturbance responses over other methods. Stability and robustness of the proposed DSWPI are addressed. Effectiveness of the DSWPI is demonstrated through the real-time implementation on a practical DC position control system.