Posts Tagged ‘PID’
The Benefits of Feed Forward Control
By nature most people are reactive when it comes to dealing with life’s big expenditures. Think of happy occasions such as graduations and weddings. Then consider more somber milestones like retirement. By most accounts the average worker is wholly unprepared to absorb the costs linked to these and other of life’s events. Even though the timing and amount of those costs can be forecasted, the typical approach to saving for the future isn’t up to the task. Face it: As a species we’re wired to be reactive!
Read MoreWhat is Feed Forward Control?
To no practitioner’s surprise, process control exists as a discipline because manufacturing is complex. It’s erratic and occasionally unpredictable. At many facilities it is highly hazardous. Variability – whether localized to a single process or reverberated throughout a plant – can transform production from a well-managed operation to a highly turbulent task. Variability is a key reason why manufacturing is difficult. So it’s no wonder that process engineers focus their efforts on controlling disturbances – those unplanned upsets which drive variability from one process to the next.
Read MoreThe Pros and Cons of Cascade Control
As shared previously Cascade Control is an advanced application of Single Loop Control. Through the use of a secondary and faster PID control loop, practitioners can improve a given process’ ability to correct for known disturbances. Although it is considered an advanced strategy, Cascade Control is commonly used across the process industries.
Read MoreWhat Options Exist for Tuning Emerson DeltaV Controllers?
Emerson’s DeltaV distributed control system (DCS) dominates much of North America’s process manufacturing market and beyond. For good reason engineers routinely rank it among the top supervisory control platforms globally. And while DeltaV has proven its capabilities as a comprehensive DCS platform other technologies have extended its overall application value in industrial arenas ranging from basic materials and chemicals to power and paper. It’s no surprise that some of those technologies come from innovative third parties.
Read MoreHow Do Plant-Wide Diagnostics Pinpoint a PID Controller Performance Issues
It may not be hard to imagine: It’s holiday season. You’re headed to the local shopping plaza. You’ve got one, two, maybe more children in tow. There are thousands of cars competing for a fixed number of parking spots. Items on your list are in limited supply – of course. The permutations of things that could go wrong seem unlimited as each of these factors interact with each other. Anxiety builds. The crowds. The lines. The waiting. If you only had the ability to track the movement of other consumers on a mall-wide basis and avoid problems that put your shopping mission at risk!
Read MoreHow to Perform a Step Test
Tuning PID controllers is a multi-step process. While it is important to understand each step in the process, performing the bump test and collecting dynamic data is the most crucial step that generally dictates the outcome. This post delves into one particular type of test – the Step Test – before introducing other tests commonly used in PID controller tuning.
Read MoreMay 26, 2016 – Control Station Expands Portfolio of eLearning Courses
Initial Multi-Lingual eLearning Offering for Operators, Technicians, and Engineers May 25, 2016 – Control Station today announced availability of an expanded eLearning offering targeting the training and skills development…
Read MoreAccelerating Start-Up, Optimizing PID Control
Control Station has been fortunate to partner with leading, global OEMs like Yokogawa. Award-winning products like csTuner are helping process manufacturers at all stages of operation. As GranBio in Brazil recently shared, csTuner is especially valuable during start-up when highly variable process conditions are the norm and quickly establishing safe, stable operations is the objective. Our portfolio of PID tuning products are the only ones consistently proven to handle those complex dynamics – what engineers know as the ‘real-world’.
Read MoreCommon Industrial Applications of PI Control
Studies show that when individuals are given a set of three options they are instinctively biased to prefer the middle one. When this finding is applied to purchasing behavior a common outcome is that consumers pick the middle priced option with little-to-no rationale other than a desire to avoid being viewed as either too cheap or too lavish. It’s known as the Compromise Effect. While the PID controller offers three options – P-Only, PI and PID – the rationale for selecting the middle option is generally clear. But PI Control is not only the instinctive choice, on many occasions it is also the superior and simpler one.
Read MoreCommon Industrial Applications of P-Only Control
Effective Disturbance Rejection
“When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail” – a concept attributed to Abraham Maslow. Such can be the situation with process control and the PID controller. For decades practitioners have applied the PID to tackle the majority of challenges related to process control. Fortunately for practitioners the PID is more like a Swiss Army Knife as it can take different forms. The focus of this post is on a pair of applications of P-Only Control – or Proportional-Only Control.