Course title: Control systems

Course code: EEE-359

Fahim Mahmud
Assistant Professor
Department of EEE
CUET
Class outline
• Transient response of a system
• System response
• Poles and zeros of a system
• First-order system
• Time constant, rise time, settling time
• First-order transfer function via testing
• Second-order system introduction
• Overdamped, underdamped, undamped and critically damped response
• Natural frequency and damping ratio
• More on underdamped response (rise time, peak time, percent overshoot, settling time)
• System with additional poles
• System with zeros
Transient response of a system
• Transient response of a system is the behavior of a system before it reaches its final steady state
condition.
• For example, a lift goes through a transient period before reaching its steady state velocity. Same
is the case for a car when it accelerates.
• We always look for some desirable transient properties.
• The transient period should be smooth, fast and have no overshoot.
• However, too fast transient response may result in discomfort to the users.
• Transient response is the system behavior with respect to time, that is how the system behavior
evolves over time.
System response
• The response of any system consists of two parts:
• Forced response
• Natural response
• Forced response results from the input to the system.
• Natural response is the inherent behavior of the system.
• For a system to be stable, the natural response must decay to zero.
Poles and zeros
• Poles and zeros of a transfer function give a qualitative handle on the problem. By inspection of
the poles and zeros, we can quickly get an idea of the system response.
• The values of the Laplace transform variable, s, that cause the transfer function to become infinite
are called poles.
• The values of the Laplace transform variable, s, that cause the transfer function to become zero are
known as zeros.
• A pole of the input function generates the form of the forced response.
• A pole of the transfer function generates the form of the natural response.
• The zeros and poles generate the amplitude for both the forced and natural responses.
• For example, find the poles and zeros of the transfer function (s+2)/(s+5) and show it in the s-
plane.
First-order system
• The systems whose dynamic behavior can be described with a first-order differential equation are
called first-order systems. (Ordinary differential equations consist of only a single variable along
with its derivatives.)
• The general form of a first-order system without any zeros is
• If the input is a step (1/s), the output or step response is
• Taking the inverse Laplace transform, we get:
Time constant, rise time, settling time
• The time required for the step response to rise
to 63% of its final value. The pole of a first-
order system is located at the reciprocal of the
time constant. The farther the pole from the
imaginary axis, the faster the transient
response (rate of decay of the natural
response).
• It is the time required for the step response to
go from 10% to 90% of its final value.
• It is the time required for the step response to
reach and stay within 2% of its final value
(2% settling time. There are others, such as
5% settling time etc.)
First-order transfer function via testing
• If it's not possible to find the transfer function
of a first-order system via testing, we can
approximate its transfer function from its
input-output relationship.
• We apply a step input and find its output (step
response). From the step response, we can
calculate its time constant and steady-state
value.
• A first-order system has no overshoot and
non-zero initial slope.
• Guess the transfer function from the response
curve on the right hand side.
Second-order system
• A second-order system is one which is described by a second-order ordinary differential equation.
• Second-order system exhibits a wide variety of responses.
• Whereas varying the parameter of a first-order system simply changes the speed of the response,
changes in parameters of a second-order system can change the form of the response.
• For example, a second-order system can demonstrate a first-order like response, or an
underdamped, critically damped, overdamped or undamped/oscillatory behavior.
• The general transfer function for a general second-order system is as follows:

• Depending on the values of a and b, the system can demonstrate the various behaviors mentioned
above.
Second-order system responses
• Overdamped response: Two distinct real poles at left-hand side of the imaginary axis.
• Underdamped response: Two complex conjugate poles at left-hand side of the imaginary axis.
• Undamped response: Two purely imaginary conjugate poles.
• Critically damped response: Two repeating (same) poles at left-hand side of the imaginary axis.
• Skill assessment exercise-4.3
Second-order system responses…
General second-order system
• After getting a qualitative feeling for the second-order system, we will try to quantitively describe
this system.
• General second order system can be described by two characteristics namely natural frequency
and damping ratio just like a first-order system can be described by the time constant.
Natural frequency and damping ratio
• The natural frequency of a second-order system is the frequency of oscillation of the system
without damping.
• Damping ratio is defined as follows:

• Considering the general format for a second-order system,

• When a = 0, the poles are purely imaginary and the system is undamped. Hence, the natural
frequency is
• The damping ratio can be found by evaluating the step response in time domain and is found to be
• Exponential decay frequency =
• So, the damping ratio =
Natural frequency and damping ratio
• The general second-order system transfer function can be written in terms of the natural frequency
and damping ratio as follows:

• Example-4.3
• Solving for the poles of the above transfer function, we find:
Damping ratio and step response
Damping ratio and step response…
Numerical
• Example-4.4
• Skill assessment-4.4
Underdamped second-order system
• Underdamped second-order system is a common model for physical problems. So, we will analyze
it further.
• The step response is as follows:

• Assuming the damping ratio (zeta) to be less than 1 (underdamped case), we get:
Underdamped second-order system…
• Taking the inverse Laplace transform, we get:

• A plot of the step response with varying values for the damping ratio can be seen in the next slide.
Step response of underdamped
response with varying damping ratio
Parameters of an underdamped second
order system
• Rise time
• Peak time
• Settling time
• Percent overshoot
Parameters of an underdamped second
order system…
Parameters of an underdamped second
order system…
• Peak time is found by differentiating the step response equation in time domain and finding the
first zero crossing after t = 0. It’s because it has a zero initial slope unlike the first order system
which had non-zero initial slope.
• After some mathematical juggling, the peak time can be found to be:

• Percent overshoot is defined as

• s
Percent overshoot vs. damping ratio
Settling time and rise time
• The settling time can be found by letting the exponential decay component amplitude to become
0.02. Thus, we can find:
Settling time and rise time…
• Rise time cannot be evaluated exactly from
equation. Rather, it can be approximated using
a computer.
• In general, rise time increases as damping
ratio increases.
• Example-4.5
Relation of natural frequency and
damping ratio to pole location
Relation of natural frequency and
damping ratio to pole location…
Pole movement along vertical line
Pole movement along horizontal line
Pole movement along radial line
Numerical
• Find the following quantities:
• Damping ratio
• Natural frequency
• Damped frequency
• Peak time
• Percent overshoot
• Settling time.
Visualization with MATLAB
• We will plot the step responses of some
transfer function and see the relation of the
pole movement to the peak time, settling time
and percent overshoot.
• Let’s first see these two transfer functions:

• They have complex conjugate poles of

• Let’s see their step responses.
• Comment on the peak time, settling time,
damping ratio and percent overshoot.
Visualization with MATLAB…
• How about these two transfer functions? What
do you think will happen to their step
responses in terms of peak time, settling time,
percent overshoot and damping ratio?

• Can you explain what you see in the plot?

• Try to explain using the pole locations.
Visualization with MATLAB…
• Only one more!
• What do you think about the step response of
the following two transfer functions?

• See the figure on the right.

• Can you explain?
Design problem
• We want to design a series RLC circuit with
the following requirements:
• The output is capacitor voltage.
• Percent overshoot should be around 9.5%
• The natural frequency should be 377 rad/s
• Find the component values.
• Find the peak time and settling time
• Plot your result in MATLAB and compare
with your theoretical findings.
Analysis problem
• Find the transfer function G(s) = X(s)/F(s)
• Find: the damping ratio, percent overshoot,
settling time, peak time and rise time.
• For rise time, use the following graph in the
next slide.
• Plot its step response using MATLAB and
compare with your theoretical findings.
Normalized rise time vs. damping ratio
System response with additional poles
• For systems which have more than two poles, we can’t directly use the equations developed for
two pole systems.
• However, if the additional non-dominant poles are much left to the dominant poles in the s-
domain, then we can approximate the system as a second order system.
• In this case, the exponential decay due to the additional poles will die out much faster than the
decay due to the dominant poles.
• As a rule of thumb, if the non-dominant poles is at least five times left to the dominant poles, we
can make the second-order system approximation without considerable error.
• Even if the residue/magnitude (after partial fraction expansion) is large, it will die out after five
time constants.
• Example-4.8 and skill-4.6 (First see the graphs in the next two slides. Try the plots using
MATLAB)
System response with additional poles…
System response with additional poles…
System response with zeros
• Zeros of a system affect the residue/amplitude of a response component but it doesn’t affect the
nature of the response – exponential, damped sinusoid and so on.
• Let’s add a zero to the left-hand side of the imaginary axis to a two-pole system.

• So, the zero simply looks like a gain factor.

System response with zeros…
• An alternative approach to look at the effect of adding zeros is as follows:
• Say, we have a transfer function T(s) and the step response is C(s).
• Adding a zero at –a gives us a new transfer function (s + a)T(s)
• The response of the new function is sC(s) + aC(s) since Laplace is a linear operator.
• So, we can see that the response of a system with zeros consist of two parts: the derivative of the
original response and a scaled version of the original response. If a (the negative of the zero) is
very large, the response is just a scaled version of the original. Otherwise, the derivative term
comes into picture.
• The derivative for step responses is typically positive at the beginning. Thus, for small values of a,
we can expect more overshoot at the beginning.
Nonminimum phase system
• If the zero is on the right-hand side of the
imaginary axis, the derivative term becomes
opposite to the scaled response term.
• Thus, the response initially goes the opposite
direction to the scaled term.
• If a motorcycle has a nonminimum phase
system, it would initially turn right if the steer
was turned left.
• Try plotting the step response of some transfer
functions with no zero, zero on the left, zero
on the right using MATLAB and explain.
THANK YOU