Control engineering or
Control systems engineering is the
engineeringEngineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
discipline that applies
control theoryControl theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The desired output of a system is called the reference...
to design systems with predictable behaviors. The practice uses sensors to measure the output performance of the device being controlled (often a vehicle) and those measurements can be used to give
feedbackFeedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
to the input actuators that can make corrections toward desired performance. When a device is designed to perform without the need of human inputs for correction it is called
automatic controlAutomatic control is the application of concepts derived from the research area of modern control theory. Automatic control is also a technology for application of control strategies. The implementing requires prior of analyzing and modeling of the subject to be controlled...
(such as
cruise controlCruise control is a system that automatically controls the speed of a motor vehicle. The system takes over the throttle of the car to maintain a steady speed as set by the driver.-History:...
for regulating a car's speed). Multi-disciplinary in nature, control systems engineering activities focus on implementation of control systems mainly derived by
mathematical modelA mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used not only in the natural sciences and engineering disciplines A mathematical model is a...
ing of
systemSystem is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
s of a diverse range.
Overview
Modern day control engineering (also called control systems engineering) is a relatively new field of study that gained a significant attention during 20th century with the advancement in technology. It can be broadly defined as practical application of
control theoryControl theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The desired output of a system is called the reference...
. Control engineering has an essential role in a wide range of control systems, from simple household washing machines to high-performance F-16 fighter aircraft. It seeks to understand physical systems, using mathematical modeling, in terms of inputs, outputs and various components with different behaviors; use control systems design tools to develop
controllerIn control theory, a controller is a device which monitors and affects the operational conditions of a given dynamical system. The operational conditions are typically referred to as output variables of the system which can be affected by adjusting certain input variables...
s for those systems; and implement controllers in physical systems employing available technology. A
systemA control system is a device, or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or system.There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback or linear controls...
can be
mechanicalMechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
,
electricalElectrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
,
fluidIn physics, a fluid is a substance that continually deforms under an applied shear stress. Fluids are a subset of the phases of matter and include liquids, gases, plasmas and, to some extent, plastic solids....
, chemical,
financial"Finance" is often defined simply as the management of money or “funds” management Modern finance, however, is a family of business activity that includes the origination, marketing, and management of cash and money surrogates through a variety of capital accounts, instruments, and markets created...
and even
biologicalBiology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, and the mathematical modeling, analysis and controller design uses
control theoryControl theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The desired output of a system is called the reference...
in one or many of the
timeTime domain is a term used to describe the analysis of mathematical functions, physical signals or time series of economic or environmental data, with respect to time. In the time domain, the signal or function's value is known for all real numbers, for the case of continuous time, or at various...
,
frequencyIn electronics, control systems engineering, and statistics, frequency domain is a term used to describe the domain for analysis of mathematical functions or signals with respect to frequency, rather than time....
and complex-s domains, depending on the nature of the design problem.
History
Automatic control Systems were first developed over two thousand years ago. The first feedback control device on record is thought to be the ancient Ktesibios's
water clockA water clock or clepsydra is any timepiece in which time is measured by the regulated flow of liquid into or out from a vessel where the amount is then measured.Water clocks, along with sundials, are likely to be the oldest time-measuring instruments, with the only exceptions...
in
AlexandriaAlexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Egypt around the third century B.C. It kept time by regulating the water level in a vessel and, therefore, the water flow from that vessel. This certainly was a successful device as water clocks of similar design were still being made in Baghdad when the Mongols captured the city in 1258 A.D. A variety of automatic devices have been used over the centuries to accomplish useful tasks or simply to just entertain. The latter includes the automata, popular in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries, featuring dancing figures that would repeat the same task over and over again; these automata are examples of open-loop control. Milestones among feedback, or "closed-loop" automatic control devices, include the temperature regulator of a furnace attributed to Drebbel, circa 1620, and the centrifugal flyball governor used for regulating the speed of steam engines by James Watt in 1788.
In his 1868 paper "On Governors", J. C. Maxwell (who discovered the Maxwell electromagnetic field equations) was able to explain instabilities exhibited by the flyball governor using differential equations to describe the control system. This demonstrated the importance and usefulness of mathematical models and methods in understanding complex phenomena, and signaled the beginning of mathematical control and systems theory. Elements of control theory had appeared earlier but not as dramatically and convincingly as in Maxwell's analysis.
Control theory made significant strides in the next 100 years. New mathematical techniques made it possible to control, more accurately, significantly more complex dynamical systems than the original flyball governor. These techniques include developments in optimal control in the 1950s and 1960s, followed by progress in stochastic, robust, adaptive and optimal control methods in the 1970s and 1980s. Applications of control methodology have helped make possible space travel and communication satellites, safer and more efficient aircraft, cleaner auto engines, cleaner and more efficient chemical processes, to mention but a few.
Before it emerged as a unique discipline, control engineering was practiced as a part of mechanical engineering and control theory was studied as a part of
electrical engineeringElectrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
, since electrical circuits can often be easily described using control theory techniques. In the very first control relationships, a current output was represented with a voltage control input. However, not having proper technology to implement electrical control systems, designers left with the option of less efficient and slow responding mechanical systems. A very effective mechanical controller that is still widely used in some hydro plants is the
governorA centrifugal governor is a specific type of governor that controls the speed of an engine by regulating the amount of fuel admitted, so as to maintain a near constant speed whatever the load or fuel supply conditions...
. Later on, previous to modern
power electronicsPower electronics is the application of solid-state electronics for the control and conversion of electric power.-Introduction:Power electronic converters can be found wherever there is a need to modify a form of electrical energy...
, process control systems for industrial applications were devised by mechanical engineers using
pneumaticPneumatics is a branch of technology, which deals with the study and application of use of pressurized gas to effect mechanical motion.Pneumatic systems are extensively used in industry, where factories are commonly plumbed with compressed air or compressed inert gases...
and hydraulic control devices, many of which are still in use today.
Control theory
There are two major divisions in control theory, namely, classical and modern, which have direct implications over the control engineering applications. The scope of classical control theory is limited to single-input and single-output (SISO) system design. The system analysis is carried out in time domain using differential equations, in complex-s domain with
Laplace transform or in frequency domain by transforming from the complex-s domain. All systems are assumed to be second order and single variable, and higher-order system responses and multivariable effects are ignored. A controller designed using classical theory usually requires on-site tuning due to design approximations. Yet, due to easier physical implementation of classical controller designs as compared to systems designed using modern control theory, these controllers are preferred in most industrial applications. The most common controllers designed using classical control theory are
PID controllerA proportional–integral–derivative controller is a generic control loop feedback mechanism widely used in industrial control systems – a PID is the most commonly used feedback controller. A PID controller calculates an "error" value as the difference between a measured process variable and a...
s.
In contrast, modern control theory is carried out in the
state spaceIn control engineering, a state space representation is a mathematical model of a physical system as a set of input, output and state variables related by first-order differential equations...
, and can deal with multi-input and multi-output (
MIMOIn radio, multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO , is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance. It is one of several forms of smart antenna technology...
) systems. This overcomes the limitations of classical control theory in more sophisticated design problems, such as fighter aircraft control. In modern design, a system is represented as a set of first order
differential equationA differential equation is a mathematical equation for an unknown function of one or several variables that relates the values of the function itself and its derivatives of various orders...
s defined using state variables.
NonlinearNonlinear control is the area of control engineering specifically involved with systems that are nonlinear, time-variant, or both. Many well-established analysis and design techniques exist for LTI systems ; however, one or both of the controller and the system under control in a general control...
, multivariable,
adaptiveAdaptive control is the control method used by a controller which must adapt to a controlled system with parameters which vary, or are initially uncertain. For example, as an aircraft flies, its mass will slowly decrease as a result of fuel consumption; a control law is needed that adapts itself...
and
robust controlRobust control is a branch of control theory that explicitly deals with uncertainty in its approach to controller design. Robust control methods are designed to function properly so long as uncertain parameters or disturbances are within some set...
theories come under this division. Being fairly new, modern control theory has many areas yet to be explored. Scholars like Rudolf E. Kalman and
Aleksandr LyapunovAleksandr Mikhailovich Lyapunov was a Russian mathematician, mechanician and physicist. His surname is sometimes romanized as Ljapunov, Liapunov or Ljapunow....
are well-known among the people who have shaped modern control theory.
Control systems
Control engineering is the engineering
disciplineIn its original sense, discipline is referred to systematic instruction given to disciples to train them as students in a craft or trade, or to follow a particular code of conduct or "order". Often, the phrase "to discipline" carries a negative connotation. This is because enforcement of order –...
that focuses on the
modelingA mathematical model is a description of a system using mathematical concepts and language. The process of developing a mathematical model is termed mathematical modeling. Mathematical models are used not only in the natural sciences and engineering disciplines A mathematical model is a...
of a diverse range of dynamic systems (e.g.
mechanicalMechanics is the branch of physics concerned with the behavior of physical bodies when subjected to forces or displacements, and the subsequent effects of the bodies on their environment....
systemSystem is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
s) and the design of
controllerIn control theory, a controller is a device which monitors and affects the operational conditions of a given dynamical system. The operational conditions are typically referred to as output variables of the system which can be affected by adjusting certain input variables...
s that will cause these systems to behave in the desired manner. Although such controllers need not be electrical many are and hence control engineering is often viewed as a subfield of electrical engineering. However, the falling price of microprocessors is making the actual implementation of a control system essentially trivial. As a result, focus is shifting back to the mechanical engineering discipline, as intimate knowledge of the physical system being controlled is often desired.
Electrical circuits,
digital signal processorA digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
s and
microcontrollerA microcontroller is a small computer on a single integrated circuit containing a processor core, memory, and programmable input/output peripherals. Program memory in the form of NOR flash or OTP ROM is also often included on chip, as well as a typically small amount of RAM...
s can all be used to implement
Control systemA control system is a device, or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or system.There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback or linear controls...
s. Control engineering has a wide range of applications from the flight and propulsion systems of
commercial airlinersAn airliner is a large fixed-wing aircraft for transporting passengers and cargo. Such aircraft are operated by airlines. Although the definition of an airliner can vary from country to country, an airliner is typically defined as an aircraft intended for carrying multiple passengers in commercial...
to the
cruise controlCruise control is a system that automatically controls the speed of a motor vehicle. The system takes over the throttle of the car to maintain a steady speed as set by the driver.-History:...
present in many modern
automobileAn automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
s.
In most of the cases, control engineers utilize
feedbackFeedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
when designing
control systemA control system is a device, or set of devices to manage, command, direct or regulate the behavior of other devices or system.There are two common classes of control systems, with many variations and combinations: logic or sequential controls, and feedback or linear controls...
s. This is often accomplished using a
PID controllerA proportional–integral–derivative controller is a generic control loop feedback mechanism widely used in industrial control systems – a PID is the most commonly used feedback controller. A PID controller calculates an "error" value as the difference between a measured process variable and a...
system. For example, in an
automobileAn automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
with
cruise controlCruise control is a system that automatically controls the speed of a motor vehicle. The system takes over the throttle of the car to maintain a steady speed as set by the driver.-History:...
the vehicle's
speedIn kinematics, the speed of an object is the magnitude of its velocity ; it is thus a scalar quantity. The average speed of an object in an interval of time is the distance traveled by the object divided by the duration of the interval; the instantaneous speed is the limit of the average speed as...
is continuously monitored and fed back to the system, which adjusts the
motor'sThe internal combustion engine is an engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer in a combustion chamber. In an internal combustion engine, the expansion of the high-temperature and high -pressure gases produced by combustion apply direct force to some component of the engine...
torqueTorque, moment or moment of force , is the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis, fulcrum, or pivot. Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist....
accordingly. Where there is regular feedback,
control theoryControl theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The desired output of a system is called the reference...
can be used to determine how the system responds to such feedback. In practically all such systems
stabilityIn mathematics, stability theory addresses the stability of solutions of differential equations and of trajectories of dynamical systems under small perturbations of initial conditions...
is important and control theory can help ensure stability is achieved.
Although feedback is an important aspect of control engineering, control engineers may also work on the control of systems without feedback. This is known as open loop control. A classic example of open loop control is a
washing machineA washing machine is a machine designed to wash laundry, such as clothing, towels and sheets...
that runs through a pre-determined cycle without the use of
sensorA sensor is a device that measures a physical quantity and converts it into a signal which can be read by an observer or by an instrument. For example, a mercury-in-glass thermometer converts the measured temperature into expansion and contraction of a liquid which can be read on a calibrated...
s.
Control engineering education
At many universities, control engineering courses are taught in
ElectricalElectrical engineering is a field of engineering that generally deals with the study and application of electricity, electronics and electromagnetism. The field first became an identifiable occupation in the late nineteenth century after commercialization of the electric telegraph and electrical...
and
Electronic EngineeringElectronics engineering, also referred to as electronic engineering, is an engineering discipline where non-linear and active electrical components such as electron tubes, and semiconductor devices, especially transistors, diodes and integrated circuits, are utilized to design electronic...
, Mechatronics Engineering,
Mechanical engineeringMechanical engineering is a discipline of engineering that applies the principles of physics and materials science for analysis, design, manufacturing, and maintenance of mechanical systems. It is the branch of engineering that involves the production and usage of heat and mechanical power for the...
, and
Aerospace engineeringAerospace engineering is the primary branch of engineering concerned with the design, construction and science of aircraft and spacecraft. It is divided into two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering...
; in others it is connected to
computer scienceComputer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, as most control techniques today are implemented through computers, often as Embedded systems (as in the automotive field). The field of control within
chemical engineeringChemical engineering is the branch of engineering that deals with physical science , and life sciences with mathematics and economics, to the process of converting raw materials or chemicals into more useful or valuable forms...
is often known as
process controlProcess control is a statistics and engineering discipline that deals with architectures, mechanisms and algorithms for maintaining the output of a specific process within a desired range...
. It deals primarily with the control of variables in a chemical process in a plant. It is taught as part of the undergraduate curriculum of any chemical engineering program, and employs many of the same principles in control engineering. Other engineering disciplines also overlap with control engineering, as it can be applied to any system for which a suitable model can be derived.
Control engineering has diversified applications that include science, finance management, and even human behavior. Students of control engineering may start with a linear control system course dealing with the time and complex-s domain, which requires a thorough background in elementary mathematics and
Laplace transform (called classical control theory). In linear control, the student does frequency and time domain analysis.
Digital controlDigital control is a branch of control theory that uses digital computers to act as system controllers.Depending on the requirements, a digital control system can take the form of a microcontroller to an ASIC to a standard desktop computer....
and
nonlinear controlNonlinear control is the area of control engineering specifically involved with systems that are nonlinear, time-variant, or both. Many well-established analysis and design techniques exist for LTI systems ; however, one or both of the controller and the system under control in a general control...
courses require z transformation and algebra respectively, and could be said to complete a basic control education. From here onwards there are several sub branches.
Recent advancement
Originally, control engineering was all about continuous systems. Development of computer control tools posed a requirement of discrete control system engineering because the communications between the computer-based digital controller and the physical system are governed by a computer clock. The equivalent to
Laplace transform in the discrete domain is the
z-transformIn mathematics and signal processing, the Z-transform converts a discrete time-domain signal, which is a sequence of real or complex numbers, into a complex frequency-domain representation....
. Today many of the control systems are computer controlled and they consist of both digital and analog components.
Therefore, at the design stage either digital components are mapped into the continuous domain and the design is carried out in the continuous domain, or analog components are mapped in to discrete domain and design is carried out there. The first of these two methods is more commonly encountered in practice because many industrial systems have many continuous systems components, including mechanical, fluid, biological and analog electrical components, with a few digital controllers.
Similarly, the design technique has progressed from paper-and-ruler based manual design to
computer-aided designComputer-aided design , also known as computer-aided design and drafting , is the use of computer technology for the process of design and design-documentation. Computer Aided Drafting describes the process of drafting with a computer...
, and now to
computer-automated designDesign Automation usually refers to electronic design automation. Extending Computer-Aided Design , automated design and Computer-Automated Design are more concerned with a broader range of applications, such as automotive engineering, civil engineering , composite material design, control...
(CAutoD), which has been made possible by
evolutionary computationIn computer science, evolutionary computation is a subfield of artificial intelligence that involves combinatorial optimization problems....
. CAutoD can be applied not just to tuning a predefined control scheme, but also to controller structure optimisation, system identification and invention of novel control systems, based purely upon a performance requirement, independent of any specific control scheme.
See also
- Adaptive control
Adaptive control is the control method used by a controller which must adapt to a controlled system with parameters which vary, or are initially uncertain. For example, as an aircraft flies, its mass will slowly decrease as a result of fuel consumption; a control law is needed that adapts itself...
- Building Automation
Building automation describes the functionality provided by the control system of a building. A building automation system is an example of a distributed control system...
- Coefficient diagram method
Coefficient diagram method , developed and introduced by Prof. Shunji Manabe in 1991. CDM is an algebraic approach applied to a polynomial loop in the parameter space, where a special diagram called a "coefficient diagram" is used as the vehicle to carry the necessary information, and as the...
- Computer-automated design
Design Automation usually refers to electronic design automation. Extending Computer-Aided Design , automated design and Computer-Automated Design are more concerned with a broader range of applications, such as automotive engineering, civil engineering , composite material design, control...
(CAutoD, CAutoCSD)
- Control reconfiguration
Control reconfiguration is an active approach in control theory to achieve fault-tolerant control for dynamic systems . It is used when severe faults, such as actuator or sensor outages, cause a break-up of the control loop, which must be restructured to prevent failure at the system level...
- Control theory
Control theory is an interdisciplinary branch of engineering and mathematics that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems. The desired output of a system is called the reference...
- Feedback
Feedback describes the situation when output from an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or occurrences of the same Feedback describes the situation when output from (or information about the result of) an event or phenomenon in the past will influence an occurrence or...
- H infinity
- Intelligent control
Intelligent control is a class of control techniques, that use various AI computing approaches like neural networks, Bayesian probability, fuzzy logic, machine learning, evolutionary computation and genetic algorithms.- Overview :...
- Laplace transform
- List of control engineering topics
- Model predictive control
Model Predictive Control, or MPC, is an advanced method of process control that has been in use in the process industries such as chemical plants and oil refineries since the 1980s...
- Nonlinear control
Nonlinear control is the area of control engineering specifically involved with systems that are nonlinear, time-variant, or both. Many well-established analysis and design techniques exist for LTI systems ; however, one or both of the controller and the system under control in a general control...
- Optimal control
Optimal control theory, an extension of the calculus of variations, is a mathematical optimization method for deriving control policies. The method is largely due to the work of Lev Pontryagin and his collaborators in the Soviet Union and Richard Bellman in the United States.-General method:Optimal...
- PID controller
A proportional–integral–derivative controller is a generic control loop feedback mechanism widely used in industrial control systems – a PID is the most commonly used feedback controller. A PID controller calculates an "error" value as the difference between a measured process variable and a...
- Power grid optimization and complex systems
- Process control
Process control is a statistics and engineering discipline that deals with architectures, mechanisms and algorithms for maintaining the output of a specific process within a desired range...
- Quantitative feedback theory
Quantitative feedback theory , developed by Isaac Horowitz , is a frequency domain technique utilising the Nichols chart in order to achieve a desired robust design over a specified region of plant uncertainty...
- Robotic unicycle
- Robust control
Robust control is a branch of control theory that explicitly deals with uncertainty in its approach to controller design. Robust control methods are designed to function properly so long as uncertain parameters or disturbances are within some set...
- Servomechanism
thumb|right|200px|Industrial servomotorThe grey/green cylinder is the [[Brush |brush-type]] [[DC motor]]. The black section at the bottom contains the [[Epicyclic gearing|planetary]] [[Reduction drive|reduction gear]], and the black object on top of the motor is the optical [[rotary encoder]] for...
- State space
In control engineering, a state space representation is a mathematical model of a physical system as a set of input, output and state variables related by first-order differential equations...
- Testing controller
TPT is a systematic test methodology for the automated software test and verification of embedded control systems. TPT is specialized on testing and validation embedded systems whose inputs and outputs can be represented as signals and is a dedicated method for continuous behavior of systems. Most...
- VisSim
VisSim is a visual block diagram language for simulation of dynamical systems and model based design of embedded systems. It is developed by Visual Solutions of Westford, Massachusetts....
- Control Engineering (magazine)
Control Engineering is a trade publication and web site owned by CFE Media serving the information needs of engineering decision-makers in the global control, instrumentation, and automation marketplace....
- EICASLAB
EICASLAB is a software suite providing a laboratory for automatic control design and time-series forecasting developed as final output of the European ACODUASIS Project IPS-2001-42068 funded by the European Community within the Innovation Programme...
External links