Auto-uning control using ziegler-nichols.docVIP

Auto-Tuning Control Using Ziegler-Nichols The classic technique for tuning a PID loop has become even more popular with the advent of controllers capable of tuning themselves. Vance VanDoren, Ph.D., P.E., Control Engineering, 10/1/2006 John “Zeke” Ziegler and Nathaniel Nichols may not have invented the proportional-integral-derivative (PID) controller, but their famous loop tuning techniques helped make the PID algorithm the most popular of all feedback control strategies used in industrial applications. The Ziegler-Nichols tuning techniques, first published in 1942, are still widely used today. Then, as now, the point of “tuning” a PID loop is to adjust how aggressively the controller reacts to errors between the measured process variable and desired setpoint. If the controlled process happens to be relatively sluggish, the PID algorithm can be configured to take immediate and dramatic actions whenever a random disturbance changes the process variable or an operator changes the setpoint. Conversely, if the process is particularly sensitive to the actuators that the controller is using to manipulate the process variable, then the PID algorithm must apply more conservative corrective efforts over a longer period. The essence of loop tuning is identifying just how dramatically the process reacts to the controller’s efforts and how aggressive the PID algorithm can afford to be as it tries to eliminate errors. Ziegler and Nichols proposed a two-step method for tuning a loop. They devised a test for quantifying behavior of a process in terms of how fast and how much the process variable changes when the control effort changes. They also developed a set of empirical formulas for translating results of those tests into appropriate performance settings or tuning parameters for the controller. Ziegler and Nichols actually proposed two such techniques, both of which are described in “Loop Tuning Fundamentals,” Control Engineering, July 2003. Auto-Tuning For many years, Ziegle