An integrated software environment for the design and real-time implementation of control systems

This paper introduces the development of a CAD environment for control syst ems, which supports not only the analysis of control systems, and the desig n of controllers, but also the real-time implementation of controllers. By utilizing this software, the control engineer is able to repeat the procedu re for the modification of both controllers and experiments, without recomp iling, to attain better performance. The software also offers a facility to update the parameters of controllers without interrupting the real-time co ntrol, which helps in the on-line tuning of controllers. Otherwise, if some of the parameters of a controller are changed on-line, the control input m ay change in a discontinuous fashion. This would have a serious effect on t he control systems. A method for the on-line tuning of a state feedback con troller with a state observer is proposed and Verified through an experimen t with an inverted pendulum. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights rese rved.