ME-339: Control Engineering
Lec 01: Introduction to Control Engineering
Instructor:
Dr. Khawaja Fahad Iqbal
Assistant Professor (Department of Robotics & AI, SMME, NUST)
Co-Principal Investigator (Intelligent Robotics Lab, NCAI)
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Outline
Control Theory
LTI Systems
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Outline
Control Theory
LTI Systems
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Control Theory
• System = Something that changes over time
• Control = Influence that change
• Examples:
– Robots
– Epidemics
– Stock markets
– Circuits
– Cars
– Autopilots
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Building Blocks
• State = Representation of what the system is currently doing
• Dynamics = Description of how the state changes
• Reference = What we want the system to do
• Output = Measurement of (some aspects of the) system
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Building Blocks
• State (x)= Representation of what the system is currently doing
• Dynamics = Description of how the state changes
• Reference (r) = What we want the system to do
• Output (y) = Measurement of (some aspects of the) system
• Input (u) = Control signal
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Building Blocks
• State (x)= Representation of what the system is currently doing
• Dynamics = Description of how the state changes
• Reference (r) = What we want the system to do
• Output (y) = Measurement of (some aspects of the) system
• Input (u) = Control signal
• Feedback = Mapping from outputs to inputs
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Need for Models
• A main question in control theory:
“How pick the input signal u?”
• Objectives:
– Stability : make sure that the system doesn’t blow up.
– Tracking : make system follow a reference
– Robustness : design controllers which are immune to changes in system parameters
– Disturbance rejection: design controllers which are immune to disturbances
– Optimality: how to achieve our objective in the best possible way
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Dynamical Models
• Effective control strategies rely on predictive models.
• Discrete time:
• Example: Clock
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Dynamical Models
• Laws of Physics are all in continuous time: Instead of
“next” state, we need derivatives with respect to time.
• Continuous time:
• Clock:
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Continuous to Discrete
• But in implementation, everything is discrete/sampled!
• Sample time:
Taylor approximation
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Outline
Control Theory
LTI Systems
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System Modelling
• Our system model should be:
– General enough
– Simple enough
– Expressive enough
– Relevant enough
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“Controlling” a Point Mass
• Given a point mass on a line whose acceleration is
directly controlled:
• We could write this in a compact/general form:
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In State Space Form
• Store these variables in a single, 2-dimensional “state” variable
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In State Space Form
• Or, even more generally
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A 2D Point-Mass
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LTI Systems
• This is a so-called LTI (Linear Time-Invariant) system in state-space form!
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LTI Systems
• The general LTI model is: A - Given by the Physics of
the system (we cannot
control this)
B – How input changes the
state (actuators)
C – How we get information
about the state (sensors)
• Main Question: How should the input be selected?
• But First: How can such systems be understood? And
where do they come from?
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Example 1: The Car Model
• The car model for cruise control:
• Suppose we only care about / can measure the velocity:
• Suppose we care about / can measure the position:
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Example 2: Two Simple “Robots”
• Consider two “robots” on a line.
• The Rendezvous Problem: Have them meet at the same location.
• Idea: Have them aim towards each other:
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Example 3: Unicycle Robot
• We need to be more systematic/ clever when it comes to generating LTI
models from nonlinear systems!
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Thank you for your attention.
Any Questions?
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