About

The purpose of this web site is to introduce simple Internet tools (Java applets) for PID controller design and tuning. Using these applets, PID tuning based on known process model or experimental data can be done in a very short time. The applets can be used also for education purposes (such as in USA, France, Australia, Czech Republic, Republic of South Africa etc.).

Applets

Fractional PID Laboratory 1.2   ask for off-line version

(Build 11). New generation of Java applet written in Swing library (it is necessary to install Java JRE 5.0 or higher). Includes all features from 'PID Controller Designer 2.5'. Provides new powerfull process identification methods based on few characteristic numbers and value sets. Allows to define more than one custom transfer function. The fractional PID controller can be designed in frequency domain. Many corrected errors in version 1.1. Read the User Guide.

PID Controller Designer 2.5   ask for off-line version

This applet is derived from previous version 2.0. It has several additional features, especially the shaping of sensitivity functions

PID Controller Designer 2.0   ask for off-line version

Interactive Java applet for robust PID controller design based on robustness regions method. The applet allows to design PID controller on the base of frequency domain requirements (e.g. gain and phase margins).

Java is an interpreted programming language. You must have a Java interpreter - Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The JVM is implemented in all new browsers including widely used MS Internet Explorer 5.x, 6.x. If you have an old browser you may have problems with Java applets. The original SUN Java Virtual Machine is free accessible on Internet. You need only to download and install the JRE (Java Running Environment) for running applets correctly. More information about Java can you find at SUN Java web site.

PID controllers

PID controllers are widely used in industrial practice more than 60 years. The development went from pneumatic through analogue to digital controllers, but the control algorithm is in fact the same. The PID controller is a standard and proved solution for the most of industrial control applications. In spite of this fact, there is not some standard and generally accepted method for PID controller design and tuning based on known process model.

Over the years, there are many formulas derived to tune the PID controller. But there exist only a few universal procedures, which can be used for arbitrary order irrational or non-minimum phase transfer functions. One of these is described in PID controller design on Internet: www.PIDlab.com (paper pdf). This method allows to design the real 2DOF PID controller for practical requirements, e. g. gain and phase margins. But the method allows to specify more complicated Nyquist plot shape requirements. The method is usable for any linear system (unstable, non-minimum phase, with or without dead time). This method is useful especially for stable non-oscillatory or slightly oscillatory processes, where the Nyquist plot shape requirements are well known. The method described is implemented in PID controller design applet.

optimized for Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.x && Firefox 1.0       last update 10.1.2008       made in Czech Republic
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