Posts Tagged ‘industrial application’

Derivative is the third term within the PID. In mathematical terms the word derivative is defined as the slope of a curve. Seen in the context of strip chart data derivative represents the rate of change in error – the difference between the Process Variable (PV) and Set Point (SP). Like the proportional and integral terms within a PID controller, the derivative term seeks to correct for error. Valuable as the third term can be in maintaining effective control, experience suggests that appropriate uses of derivative are not entirely clear.