Third International Conference on

Advances in Control and Optimization of Dynamical Systems

March 13-15, 2014. Kanpur, India

Modelling and Control of Ball and Beam System using Coefficient Diagram
Method (CDM) based PID controller
B. Meenakshipriya *. K.Kalpana.**


*Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College,
Tamilnadu, India,(email:b.meenakshipriya@gmail.com)
** Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Kongu Engineering College,
Tamilnadu, India,(email:kalpanakannan91@gmail.com)

Abstract: This paper introduces a design methodology of a PID controller for an unstable ball and beam
system based on Coefficient Diagram Method (CDM). Ball and beam system is a non-linear, unstable,
double integrating system which is widely used as a bench mark control setup for evaluating various
control strategies. Many PID controller design is developed for stable system however it is very less
common for double integrating unstable system. Co-efficient Diagram Method (CDM) is one of the
recently developed controller design methodology based on algebraic approach. With CDM, it is easy to
realize a controller under the conditions of stability, robustness and time domain performance. In this
paper, CDM based PID (CDM-PID) controller parameters are computed based on the dynamics of ball
and beam system which is developed using Euler – Lagrangian Approach. To evaluate the performance
of proposed CDM-PID controller, set-point tracking and disturbance rejection analysis of ball and beam
system are carried out through simulation runs in MATLAB-SIMULINK platform. The results are
compared with the conventional Ziegler Nicholas – PID (ZN-PID) controller in terms of Error indices
(Integral Squared Error (ISE) and Integral Absolute Error (IAE)) and Quality indices (Rise time (t r),
Settling time (ts) and Maximum peak overshoot (%Mp)). The results reveal that the CDM-PID controller
maintains good stability of the ball’s position with reduced percentage of error than ZN-PID controller.

Keywords: Ball and Beam System; Double Integrating Unstable System; CDM-PID; ZN-PID; Euler –
Lagrangian Approach

1. INTRODUCTION
Accurate control of every system is a critical task. Many
controllers have been developed in the past decades. Due to
simple structure and robust control PID controller is widely
used in industrial applications (Astrom & Hagglund, 1995).
PID controller helps to progress the dynamic response of the
system by eliminating the steady state error (Liua & Daleyb,
2001). Most of the practical issues such as actuator saturation
and integrator wind up are dealt by PID controller. Hence it is
also known as “bread and butter of automatic control (Astrom
& Hagglund, 2001). Number of tuning rules either model
based or non-model based are developed for PID controller
(Aidan O’Dwyer, 2006) (Sigrud Skogestad, 2001) (S.
Skogestad, 2003). These methods are simple and straight
forward to apply, since it provides direct tuning formula for
tuning PID controller (Liua & Daleyb, 2001). Model based
controller is more accurate than non-model based controller
(Mohammad Keshmiri et al., 2012). Thus, though many such
tuning rules are available for stable, unstable and integrating
systems, nevertheless only few literatures are available for
model based double integrating unstable system. Hence it is
necessary to develop a robust control strategy in order to
obtain better control performance of double integrating
unstable system.
CDM is fairly a recent controller design approach; though it
is unfamiliar it has been used as a basic philosophy in control
community for more than 30 years (Graham & Lathrop,
1953) (Chestnut & Mayer, 1959) (Kessler, 1960) (Kilamori,
1979) (Manabe, 1991) (Tanaka & Ashikaga, 1992) (Manabe,
1997). CDM is an algebraic approach combining classical
and modern control design and is developed by Prof.Sunji
Manabe in the year 1991 (Manabe, 1998). It involves the
following steps,
(1) Initially, both the controller and characteristic
polynomial of the system are simultaneously defined
(2) Based on required specification, the controller
polynomial coefficients are determined
(3) The Coefficient Diagram shows major
characteristics namely stability, response and
robustness of the control system. Thus, it helps the
designer with balance judgment in the course of the
design.
CDM is polynomial based and hence no problem occurs as a
result of pole zero cancellation (Bhaba & Somasundaram,
2009). It comprises the advantages of transfer function
representation (simple) and state space expression (accurate)
(Manabe, 1998). Since CDM design depends on stability
index and equivalent time constant, an effective controller

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2014 ACODS
March 13-15, 2014. Kanpur, India

with narrowest bandwidth and no overshoot can be obtained Feedback control must be used to keep the ball in a desired
for specified settling time (Manabe, 2002). Several position on the beam. Hence a suitable controller to be
applications based on CDM have been implemented such as designed based on the dynamics of ball and beam system.
inverted pendulum (Cahyadi et al., 2004), heat exchange The parameters to develop the dynamics of this system are
process (Erkan IMAL, 2009), temperature control tabulated in Table 1.
(Roengruen et al., 2009), bio reactor process
(Somasundaaram & Bhaba, 2010), pH neutralization TABLE 1. PARAMETERS OF BALL AND BEAM SYSTEM
(Meenakshipriya et al., 2012), in order to attain a desired
performance in terms of step response and disturbance Symbol Description Values
rejection. Though CDM has been used in wide range of m Mass of the ball 0.11Kg
applications, however it’s potential to design controller for R Radius of the ball 0.015m
double integrating unstable system is not focussed yet. d Lever arm offset 0.04m
Gravitational
g 9.8 m/s2
acceleration
2. SYSTEM DYNAMICS L Length of the Beam 40cm
The ball and beam system shown in Fig.1 is made Ball’s moment of 2mR2/5
Jb
up of a base, beam, ball, lever arm, support block and inertia Kgm2
motorized gear. The beam is connected to support block Ball position
R -
which is fixed at one side and at another side a movable coordinate
lever arm is attached which in turn controlled by the DC  Beam angle coordinate -
brush motor through belt pulley. The ball is placed on the  Servo gear angle -
beam and can roll freely along the entire length of the beam.
By applying an electrical control signal to the motor, the The dynamics of the ball is subjected to the gravity,
beam can tilt about it axis with certain angle. Movement of inertial and centrifugal forces. The simplified Lagrangian
the beam will cause the ball rolling along the beam with an equation of motion for the ball (John Hauser et al., 1992) is
acceleration that is proportional to the angle of beam. The given by
motor consists of built-in rotary optical incremental encoder
(1000 P/R) and it provides feedback information about
current actual rotary position of the motor shaft. There is a ( ) ̈ - ̇
̈
slot along the beam where a linear potentiometer sensor that
senses current linear actual position of the ball on the beam By linearizing (1) about the beam angle, sin =  for
present. Both measured positions are fed back to the control small , gives us the following linear approximation of the
system to formulate a closed loop control. system

( ) ̈

By equating the arc distance, the equation which relates the

beam angle to the angle of the gear can be approximated as
linear and it is specified as

( )

By substituting (3) in (2) gives

( ) ̈ ()
L-Length of the beam; r-Ball position;
d-Distance between centre of the gear and the joint between
the gear arms; α-Beam angle; θ-Rotation angle of the gear By taking Laplace transform of (4), the equation in terms of
input and output is obtained as
Fig.1. Ball and Beam System

The problem is to maintain the position of the ball on the ( ) ()

beam along which the ball rolls freely. The control task is to
automatically regulate the position of the ball on the beam by On rearranging, the transfer function of the ball position(r(s))
changing the angle of the beam. The beam angle will control to the gear angle ((s)) is represented as
the acceleration of the ball and not position. However by
controlling the acceleration of the ball, its position can be
control as well. In control technology the system is open loop
unstable because the system output (the ball position) ( )
increase without limit for a fixed input (beam angle).

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By substituting the values of parameters given in Table I in parameters considered for the comparative studies are Kc=
(6), the transfer function obtained as 18, Ti=2.2 sec and Td = 0.55 sec.

3.2 CDM-PID controller

3.2.1 Design of CDM controller
From (7), it is clear that the ball and beam system is a double
integrating unstable process. Hence it will provide a The standard CDM block diagram for single input single
challenging control problem. output system is shown in Fig.2.

3. DESIGN OF CONTROLLERS
3.1 ZN-PID controller
ZN closed loop method also known as Ultimate Cycle
Method is one of the most ancient tuning methods originated
in 1942 by Ziegler and Nicholas (Wayne Bequette, 2003). It
is a universally accepted optimization algorithm with simple
control structure and can be easily implemented in
MATLAB-SIMULINK platform. This method involves the
following steps to find the necessary tuning parameters of
PID controller such as Proportional Gain (Kc), Integral Time Fig. 2. Standard CDM block diagram
(Ti) and Derivative Time (Td).
where, y is the output signal, r is the reference input, u is the
 By setting Ti=∞ and Td=0 in PID controller, the value controller signal and d is the external disturbance signal. N(s)
of Kc is increased from 0 to a critical value Ku and D(s) are numerator and denominator polynomials of the
(Ultimate controller gain) at which the output exhibits plant transfer function. A(s) is the forward denominator
sustained oscillation polynomial while F(s) and B(s) are the reference numerator
and the feedback numerator polynomials of the controller
 From the output response, the period of sustained transfer function.
oscillation Pu (Ultimate period of oscillation) is found For the given system, the output of the CDM control system
is given by,
 By using Ku and Pu, ZN-PID controller settings are
computed from (8) and tabulated in Table II

TABLE 2. OPTIMIZED TUNING PARAMETERS FOR ZN-PID

CONTROLLER BASED ON ULTIMATE GAIN VALUE where, P(s) is the characteristic polynomial of the closed-loop
system and defined by,
Ku Pu Kc Ti (sec) Td (sec)
1 - 0.6 - -
2 - 1.2 - -
4 - 2.4 - -
∑
6 - 3.6 - -
8 4.8 4.8 2.4 0.6
10 4.4 6 2.2 0.55 Here, the controller polynomials (A(s) and B(s)) are given as,
20 4.4 12 2.2 0.55
30 4.4 18 2.2 0.55
50 4.4 30 2.2 0.55 ∑ ∑

From Table 2, it is observed that the sustained oscillation

When polynomial F(s) is chosen as,
is obtained for the values of Ku = 8 to 50. The simulation runs
are carried out with these controller parameters at different
operating points of ball’s position 10 cm, 20cm and 30 cm ⁄ |
since the entire operating range of ball’s position is 0 to 40
cm. From the results, it is clear that the controller parameters the overall closed loop transfer function becomes Type-1
at Ku=30 provides good closed loop response for different system. Therefore, a good closed-loop response can be
operating points. Hence the optimized ZN-PID controller achieved.

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The design parameters of CDM are the stability indices polynomials are chosen for the step disturbance signal. By
(γi) and equivalent time constant (τ). The stability indices considering the equivalent transfer function of the system
determine the stability of the system and the transient given in (16), the controller polynomials have forms
behavior of the time domain response (with overshoot,
without overshoot and oscillations etc.). In addition, they
determine the robustness of the system to parameter
variations. The equivalent time constant, is closely related to
the bandwidth and it determines the rapidity of the time
response. According to [15], the design parameters are where l1, l0, k2, k1, and k0 are controller design parameters. It
defined as follows, is considered that there is a step disturbance affecting the
system. Thus, let the structure of the controller be chosen
with l0 =0 as follows:
⁄

where ts is the user specified settling time.

By substituting (17) and (18) in (10), the characteristic
polynomial of the control system is obtained as
[ ] -

If necessary, the designer can modify the values of stability

indices. Using the design parameters defined in (13) and (14),
a target characteristic polynomial (Ptarget(s)) is formulated as By substituting the values of the equivalent time
constant τ and the stability indices γi= {γ1, γ2} in (15), the
target characteristic polynomial is formulated as

[{∑ (∏ ) } ]

By substituting the controller polynomials in (11) into (10),

the closed loop characteristic polynomial P(s) are obtained. By equating the coefficients of the terms of equal power
This polynomial is compared with (15) to obtain the of (20) and (21), CDM controller parameters (k2, k1, k0 and l1)
coefficients of CDM controller polynomials li, ki and ai are computed as follows
.
3.2.2 Design of CDM controller parameter for double
integrating process ( ) ( ) ( ) ( )
The process considered for this study is double
integrating ball and beam system. Hence the general
mathematical model of double integrating process is given The pre-filter element (F(s)) are chosen by (12) and
below. calculated as

⁄ | ⁄ ⁄

3.2.3 Design of CDM-PID controller parameter for double

Since CDM is a polynomial-based method, the transfer integrating unstable process
function of the system is thought to be two independent The CDM-PID control system is displayed in Fig.3 which
polynomials (N(s) and D(s)) as shown in Fig.2. These consist of a main controller C(s) and a feed forward
polynomials are, controller Cf(s).

The explicit forms of the controller polynomials A(s) and

B(s) appearing in the CDM control system structure as shown
in Fig.2 are represented by (11). In this work, the controller

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3.2.4 Computation of CDM-PID controller parameter

By considering the model parameters given in (7) and
choosing the optimized equivalent time constant of τ = 0.13
Fig. 3. CDM-PID control system and stability indices values of 1 = 2.5 and 2 = 2 ( Manabe’s
recommended value), CDM-PID controller parameters are
The main controller C(s) is chosen as computed from (28) and (29) as follows

( )

for conventional PID element and Cf(s) is an appropriate

element satisfying the condition. For computing the CDM-
PID parameters, the standard CDM block diagram given in
Fig. 3 is reduced to its equivalent block diagram as shown in 4. SIMULATION RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Fig. 4 using block diagram reduction techniques.
The structure of ball and beam system with ZN-PID
controller and CDM-PID controller in
MATLAB/SIMULINK plate form is shown in Figs.5 and 6.

Fig.4. Equivalent CDM block diagram

By comparing the Figs. 3 and 4, the following relations are

obtained.
Fig. 5. Structure of Ball and Beam system with ZN-PID
controller

Substitute (18) and (24) in (25), derives

( )

By equating the coefficients of like power terms, the

CDM-PID controller parameters (Kc, Ti and Td) are obtained Fig. 6. Structure of Ball and Beam system with CDM-PID
as follows: controller

The simulation runs are carried out with CDM-PID and ZN-
PID controllers at the different operating points of ball’s
position as shown in Fig.7.

Substitute (18) and (23) in (26), the parameter of feed

forward controller is found to be

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40
CDM-PID ZN-PID 25
CDM-PID ZN-PID
35 Disturbance

30 20
Ball's Position (cm)

Ball Position (cm)

25
15
20

15 10

10
5
5

0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 20 40 60 80 100
Time (sec) Time (sec)

Fig. 7. Closed loop response at different operating points of

ball’s position (20 cm, 10 cm and 30 cm) Fig.8. Disturbance rejection analysis of ball and beam system
at an operating point of 20cm of ball’s position
From the response, it is clear that the proposed CDM-PID
controller gives a fair transient response when compared to From the result, it is observed that the CDM-PID controller
ZN-PID controller. The closed loop response obtained by damped the disturbance in a shorter time with fewer peaks
CDM-PID controller is forced to follow the set point with and it is not affected by gain variations whereas ZN-PID is
less overshoot due to its two degree freedom structure. In affected by the non linearity. Also, it is confirmed that the
addition, the responses have the fastest rise time and the CDM-PID control strategy is successful in disturbance
smallest settling time compared to the ZN-PID controller. rejection.
Also, it is observed that the CDM-PID controller provides the
most consistent and robust response with the same settings
for different operating points.
5. CONCLUSION
The performance measures such as error indices and
The PID controller for double integrating unstable system
quality indices are calculated from the above responses with
was designed based on Coefficient Diagram Method (CDM).
the sampling rate of 0.02 sec and it is tabulated in Table 3.
The proposed CDM-PID controller was tested with the
transfer function model of Ball and Beam system in
TABLE 3. PERFORMANCE MEASURES AT DIFFERENT
MATLAB-SIMULINK platform. By tuning the controller
OPERATING POINTS OF BALL’S POSITION
parameters such as equivalent time constant (τ) and the
stability indices (γi), the proposed CDM-PID controller
CDM-PID ZN-PID provides superior performance than ZN-PID controller in
Performanc
e Measures 20c 10c 30c 20c 10c 30c terms of set point tracking and disturbance rejection. From
m m m m m m the results, it is proved that the CDM responses are fastest
ISE 1756 439 3952 1797 449 4042 according to rise time and have smallest settling time with
IAE 121 61 182 267 134 401 less peak overshoot. It shows a minimum error indices for
tr (sec) 0.3 0.3 0.3 0.26 0.26 0.26 the values of equivalent time constant (τ =0.13) and stability
indices (γ1=2.5 and γ2=2). Finally, it is accomplished that the
15.3 14.3 15.9
ts (sec) 1.18 1.16 1.4 proposed CDM-PID control strategy can be applied to any
8 8 6
double integrating unstable system to obtain the enhanced
17.5 17.5 17.5
%Mp 0.5 0.5 0.5 closed loop system performance.
6 6 6

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