Tutorial

Last updated Aug 2011

General and Introductory Material (Stage 1 and above)

• A brief history of feedback control – from Theorem.Net
• Why study process control? – R.M. Price explains.
• Gerhard’s Info. on Process Control provides good background on the why’s of Process Control with special emphasis on the chemical industry. Well worth a visit.
• Introduction to Process Control from Edinburgh Uni.
• Introduction to Statistical Process Control (Stage 2 and above)
• Charles William’s Feedback and Temperature Control simulation
• John Shaw’s notes on the
  • PID Algorithm
  • Ziegler-Nichols Closed Loop Tuning Method
• F.G. Shinkey on Averaging Level Control
• MATLAB
  • Control Tutorials for MATLAB
  • Using MATLAB in Control – Ian Petersen shows you how, while
  • Dr. Qammar from the Uni. of Akron, has made available a load of MATLAB m.files used in his process control classes
• Process Dynamics (Stage 2 and above, require Acrobat reader )
  • Overview of Mechanistic Modelling
  • Examples of Simple Mechanistic Models
  • Differential Equations
  • Laplace Transforms
• Poles and Zeros – an interactive tutorial
• Process Control tutorials from Control Engineering Online
  • Basics of Proportional-Integral-Derivative Control
  • Part 1: Examining the Fundamentals of PID Control
• And from The Readout Instrumentation Signpost
  • Acronyms and Initials used in Control and Instrumentation
  • Process Control and Instrumentation resources
• Tuning of PID controllers – a set of procedures by Abdul Aziz Ishak
• A complete course in Automatic Process Control by Prof. Tom Edgar of Uni. Texas at Austin

Intermediate Level (Stage 3 and above)

• Process Control 2 notes by Mark Willis  (all require Acrobat reader )
  • Control of Level
  • PID Control
  • Some Conventional Control Schemes
  • Selecting a Distillation Column Control Strategy (a basic guide).
  • Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor Models

• Multivariable Systems and Control(all require Acrobat reader )
  • Multivariable Control: an introduction – a set of notes by Mark Willis introducing multivariable control and relative gain analysis
  • Introduction to decoupling control – continues with multivariable systems; input-output structures and decoupling networks that can alleviate problems associated with loop interactions. And the overheads to go with the notes (set 1 and set 2).
• Advanced Process Control – what is it? A set of control notes that does not contain equations.

• Digital Control (Stage 4 Control 4)
  • Process Computer Implementation Strategies
  • Mathematics of sampled data systems
  • Discrete PID controllers
  • Modified discrete PID algorithms (coming soon)
  • Design of simple digital controllers
  • Dynamic models for controller design (requires Acrobat reader )
  • Minimum variance and generalised minimum variance control (requires Acrobat reader )

• Robust Control study notes (Stage 4, Control 3)The following require Acrobat reader
  • Introduction to Frequency Response
  • Plotting Frequency Response
  • Frequency Responses of Typical Systems
  • Frequency Response of 2nd-order Underdamped System
  • Applications of Frequency Response Techniques
  • Useful things to remember when applying Frequency Response Techniques

  The following HTML versions will be replaced by the pdf equivalents in the near future

  • Limitations of Laplace domain analysis – explains why Laplace Transforms is not enough
  • Frequency Domain Analysis – an introduction into the use of frequency response techniques for system identification and controller design (still a bit rough-and-ready and only part complete, but sufficient to keep you going). There’s also a MATLAB demo
  • Things to remember about complex numbers and transfer functions in frequency response analysis
  • Sensitivity Functions – what are they?
  • Brief Notes on Vector Norms
  • Optimality of Control

• Dealing with Measurement Noise gives an introduction to noise filtering (Stage 3, Process Measurement)
• Inferential Estimation and Control – what it is and why we need it.
• Review of Methods for Nonlinear Control – a set of notes by Mark Willis (requires Acrobat reader )
  
• Model Predictive Control – a survey of MPC technology that is available commercially by Joe Qin (Stage 4 and above)
• Distillation column control design using steady state models – describes the use of steady models to come up with a practicable distillation column control strategy (by Hyprotech)
• Model Uncertainty and Robust Control – a paper by Prof. Karl Astrom of Lund University, Sweden [requires Acrobat reader ]
• The PLC Tutor is a tutorial on Programmable Logic Controllers
• Process Control tutorials from Control Engineering Online
  • Part 2: The Smith Predictor–A Process Engineer’s Crystal Ball
  • Part 3: Sampled Control, Better Results with Less Data
  • Part 4: Multivariable Controllers Balance Performance and Cost

• Process Control Virtual Lab – from the Uni. Texas at Austin. Contains tutorials and simulations to help with visualisation of system responses and to practise controller tuning.
• Visit the Virtual Control Lab at Bochum University

Advanced Level (MSc. and above)

• Fuzzy Logic tutorial from the Seattle Robotics Society
• Fuzzy Systems – A Tutorial
• Multivariate Statistical Quality Control – Virginia U.
• Neural Networks
  • Bibliography of Lie theory and Neural Networks collected by Yves Moreau
  • Introduction to RBF Networks by Mark Orr
  • Neural Networks at your Fingertips
  • Neural Networks FAQ
  • Neural Networks Tutorials and Demos
  • The Perceptron provides a good introduction into the mechanism of the perceptron

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Links to Process Control and Automation Information and Resources

e-Journals relevant to Process Control and Automation accessible from computers at Newcastle University

• Artificial Intelligence
• Artificial Intelligence in Engineering
• Automatica
• Control Engineering Practice
• Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
• Expert Systems with Applications
• International Journal of Control
• Sensors and Actuators B:Chemical
• Signal Processing
• Systems and Control Letters

Link to Control Engineering Virtual Library