Introduction to Control
Last updated
Was this helpful?
Last updated
Was this helpful?
The general goal of control is to get some physical system to respond to a reference input in the way we would like.
In general, there are two different types of control.
Open-Loop control is where we pass a reference directly to the actuator to control the plant (see Figure 1).
Open-Loop control is generally difficult because the disturbances make it difficult to copy the reference exactly.
Closed loop control is using the output of our system and comparing it to the reference in order to generate the control signal (see Figure 2).
Notice how the output signal is subtracted from a reference signal, and we use the difference (a.k.a the error) to determine what input we pass into the plant.
The control law is a function of error applied by the controller to determine the inputs to the plant.