Tuning of A PID Controller for Optimal Performance of Ball and Beam System

Abstract

In this paper design schemes for a PID controller have been introduced for a ball and beam system. The ball and beam system inherently possess instability, non-linearity, under-actuated motion and is a double integrating type process. Thus, plugging it as a typical platform for trying out different control strategies. Performance comparison of Genetic Algorithm (GA) based controller optimization is done against Simple Internal Model Control (SIMC) and the classical Ziegler Nicholas (ZN-PID) controller. The results obtained using MATLAB and SIMULINK reveal that (GA) based controller outperforms (SIMC) and (ZN-PID) controllers in set-point tracking, overshoot, peak response and settling time.