Design of a fractional control using performance contours. Application to an electromechanical system

Abstract

The article proposes a frequency-based method to design a controller ensuring dynamic behavior of a closed-loop control: the first overshoot of the step response in the tracking mode or in the regulation mode, the damping ratio and the natural frequency of its dominant oscillatory mode. This method uses two contours called “performance contours” and constructed on the Nichols diagram. The first contour is the common Nichols magnitude contour which can be considered as an iso-overshoot contour. The second contour, whose construction and analytic expression are given in this article, is a new contour defined on the Nichols diagram and parameterized by the damping ratio. The proposed method uses complex non-integer (or fractional) differentiation to compute a transfer function whose open-loop Nichols locus tangents both performance contours, thus ensuring stability margins (or stability degree). The method is applied to a DC motor whose speed is controlled.