Revisiting Ziegler-Nichols. A fractional order approach

Cristina I Muresan; Robin De Keyser

doi:10.1016/j.isatra.2022.01.017

Revisiting Ziegler-Nichols. A fractional order approach

ISA Trans. 2022 Oct;129(Pt A):287-296. doi: 10.1016/j.isatra.2022.01.017. Epub 2022 Jan 20.

Authors

Cristina I Muresan¹, Robin De Keyser²

Affiliations

¹ Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Memorandumului Street, no. 28, 400114 Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Electronic address: Cristina.muresan@aut.utcluj.ro.
² DySC research group on Dynamical Systems and Control, Ghent University, Technologiepark 125, B9052, Ghent, Belgium. Electronic address: Robain.DeKeyser@UGent.be.

PMID: 35115163
DOI: 10.1016/j.isatra.2022.01.017

Abstract

PID controllers are largely used in industry. Auto-tuning methods for these controllers have emerged over the years, including the well-known Ziegler-Nichols method. Several extensions and improvements to this early autotuning method have been proposed throughout the years. A new method is introduced in this manuscript suitable for fractional order PIDs. The "direction" of the loop frequency response in the critical Ziegler-Nichols point is shaped using the the fractional order. The numerical results show that better closed loop performance is achieved. Different case studies are considered to validate the proposed method and demonstrate its advantage compared to the standard method.

Keywords: Auto-tuning; Fractional order controller; Validation; Ziegler–Nichols approach.