i-pIDtune: An interactive tool for integrated system identification and PID control

This paper describes i-pIDtune, an interactive software tool that integrates system identification and PID controller design. The tool supports experimental design and execution under plant-friendly conditions, high-order ARX estimation, and control-relevant model reduction leading to models that comply with the IMC-PID tuning rules. All these stages are depicted simultaneously and interactively in one screen. Thus, i-pIDtune allows to display both open- and closed-loop responses of the estimated models and important control-relevant validation criteria, what enables the user to readily assess how design variable choices, control performance requirements and model error can impact the achievable closed-loop performance from a restricted complexity model estimated under noisy conditions.