431-324 Control 1 (Classical Control)

431-221 Fundamentals of Signals and Systems and 431-202 Engineering Analysis B (prior to 2001, 421-205 Engineering Analysis B) or 431-226 Engineering Analysis B (old) or equivalent.

On completion of this subject students should have a good understanding of classical continuous-time controller design methods, controller implementation and the MATLAB software package to perform such design.

Topics include: motivation for control engineering; open versus closed loop control; examples of plants from engineering practice with their modelling; revision: transfer function, poles, zeros, stability, frequency and time domain representation of signals and systems, relationships between the time and frequency response of a system; feedback and feed-forward structures; sensitivity and complementary sensitivity functions; root locus; PID control; tuning of PID controllers; Nyquist stability criterion (with a proof); Bode plots, gain and phase margins; minimum phase systems; limits of performance and Bode integral constraints; lead and lag compensation; time-delay and its Pade approximation; actuator saturation and anti-windup; discretisation of continuous-time controllers.

All tutorials are MATLAB based; project involves modelling, controller design and implementation for a given plant.

• ability to apply knowledge of basic science and engineering fundamentals

• in-depth technical competence in at least one engineering discipline

• ability to undertake problem identification, formulation and solution

• expectation of the need to undertake lifelong learning, capacity to do so

• capacity for independent critical thought, rational inquiry and self-directed learning

• intellectual curiosity and creativity, including understanding of the philosophical and methodological bases of research activity

• openness to new ideas and unconventional critiques of received wisdom

One 3-hour end of semester examination, practice classes, tests, laboratory and project reports and notebooks. Students will be notified of the weighting of assessment components at the beginning of the semester.