182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

By: Peter J. Kennedy, PE

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Course Objective

This continuing education course is written specifically for professional engineers with the objective of relating to and enhancing the practice of engineering.

Course Description

182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

This course discusses many fundamental concepts associated with classical feedback control theory. Feedback control measures the state of a physical system or device with a sensing system. The measured state is fed-back and compared to a desired state and the error used by a controller to reduce the difference between the actual and desired states. An example of a feedback control system is the central heating and air conditioning system for a home, or building. A thermostat or temperature sensor is the feedback sensor that measures the room temperature and compares it to the desired temperature or set point, calculating a difference or error. If the temperature is less than the set point, the error is used by the controller to force more heat into the room. When the set point is reached, the error is zero or below an error threshold and the controller will stop heating the room. Another example is the speed control in most of today's automobiles. The speed of the vehicle is measured and compared to a desired speed. Based on the difference between actual speed and the set point, acceleration or braking is applied to the automobile drive to null the error and maintain the desired speed.

Classical control deals directly with the differential equations that describe the dynamics of a plant or process. These equations are transformed into frequency dependent transfer functions. The transfer function is the ratio of two frequency dependent polynomials whose roots describe the response of the plant in a frequency domain. The controller or compensator shapes the closed feedback loop response, given the plant response, to achieve the control performance objectives. Classical feedback control design and analysis tends to require a good foundation in mathematics, however the purpose of this course is not to dwell on the math, although examples are provided, but to provide the basic design and analysis concepts.

The topics covered begin with a description of the basic block diagram in section 2. The relationships between time and frequency domain representations of the block diagram elements are discussed in section 3 followed by the key feedback relationships derived from the block diagram algebra in section 4. Control loop stability and methods to determine stability margins are described in section 5 followed by a discussion of specifying control loop performance in section 6. A couple of control loop design methods are provided in section 7. The basic theory is then applied to two examples; a home heating system in section 8 and motion control applications in section 9. Converting to a digital sample data controller is discussed in section 10; as related to the motion control example in section 9.

Questions about this course? Email the Author: peterkennedy@optonline.net

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(4.2) 12 Reviews

Review of: Feedback Control System Fundamentals

William Beck

03/12/2024

thorough

1 of 1 customers found this helpful.

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Review of: Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Thomas Stanley

12/13/2021

Verified Buyer

A very complete review of the technology.

2 of 2 customers found this helpful.

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Robert Turley

01/06/2021

Verified Buyer

I found the course very interesting, but also very difficult to master. The author obviously knows his stuff, but this is definitely not easy material to absorb in a four hour sitting.

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Kip Barkley

04/23/2020

Verified Buyer

As abstraction piles upon abstraction, I find it difficult to follow the frow of the presentation since I do not work with these concepts. But a good and useful presentation on a topic about which I want to know more.

1 of 1 customers found this helpful.

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Michael J Kutz

10/29/2019

Verified Buyer

Though the material was well presented, the content can hardly be considered 'Fundamental'. There were far too many new terms, many with little or no explanation / derivation. Similar for the extensive use of mathematical formulae and calculations. I would not recommend this course except for those well familiar with control system terminology.

3 of 3 customers found this helpful.

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Robert Webb

03/21/2019

Excellent

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Eric Thosteson

01/25/2019

Verified Buyer

Nice overview and introduction to relevant topics. To gain a solid understanding would require working through all of the math presented in the course material, but that would have taken at least another 4 hours. I appreciate that the math was included but not essential to pass the test. I'm not sure how it could have been presented as well without the level of math included, so good compromise.

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Horacio F Perez

12/14/2018

Verified Buyer

Really informative and a good reminder of the school time

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Philip Bisesi

11/17/2018

Verified Buyer

The course was very well put together to cover control systems. It was very helpful to have the numerous figures and graphs to help remember and re-understand the various control functions.

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182-Feedback Control System Fundamentals

Cliff Holder

12/23/2017

Verified Buyer

The course is a good refresher on classical control. It includes examples of digital analysis. The math can be pretty intense but the concepts are covered well.

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anonymous

12/14/2014

A few prerequisite courses prior to this might have been helpful.

Could restructure, have a Part 1 and Part 2, similar to the Memory courses, then this might be Part 3. This appeared well written.

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Wayne Addy

12/13/2014

I thought the course material was a little too ambitious for a 4 PDH course.

2 of 2 customers found this helpful.

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Course Code: 100239-01

Course PDH Hours: 4

Engineering Course Approvals

This course is accepted for engineering continuing education credit in all US states, territories, the District of Columbia, and Canadian provinces.
Ohio rules allow only 6-hours of unsupervised online courses such as this course per license renewal period
Kansas rules allow only 5-hours of self-study courses such as this course per license renewal period

About Course Approvals