Measurement noise filtering for common PID tuning rules

• Measurement noise attenuation for PID control using a second order filter has been investigated.
• The filter time constant effects on performance, robustness and noise attenuations were explored.
• SDU and knkn are proposed as new criteria to characterize measurement noise attenuation.
• A simple tuning procedure is proposed to design measurement noise filters for PID control.
• Filtering reduces control actions due to measurement noise with moderate decrease of performance.

Measurement noise generates undesired control activity resulting in wear of actuators and reduced performance. The effects of measurement noise can be alleviated by filtering the measurement signal. New criteria based on the trade-offs between performance, robustness, and attenuation of measurement noise are proposed for assessment of the design. Simple rules for calculating the filter time constant based on the nominal process model and the nominal controller are derived and a complete tuning procedure is proposed. The tuning procedure accounts for the effects of filtering. It is applied to well-known tuning procedures such as Lambda, SIMC, and AMIGO. The results are illustrated by experiments.