Optimized PID Position Control of a Nonlinear System Based on Correlating the Velocity with Position Error

We examined a design approach for a PID controller for a nonlinear ball and beam system. Main objective of our research was to establish a nonmodel based control system, which would also not be dependent on a specific ball and beam hardware setup. The proposed PID controller setup is based on a cascaded configuration of an inner PID ball velocity control loop and an outer proportional ball position control loop. The effectiveness of the proposed controller setup was first presented in simulation environment in comparison to a hardware dependent PD cascaded controller, along with a more comprehensive study on possible design approach for optimal PID controller parameters in relation to main functionality of the controller setup. Experimental real time control results were then obtained on a laboratory setup of the ball and beam system on which PD cascaded controller could not be applied without parallel system model processing.