Design of PID controllers in double feedback loops for SISO systems with set-point filters

A PID controller is widely used to control industrial processes that are mostly open loop stable or unstable. Selection of proper feedback structure and controller tuning helps to improve the performance of the loop. In this paper a double-feedback loop/method is used to achieve stability and better performance of the process. The internal feedback is used for stabilizing the process and the outer loop is used for good setpoint tracking. An internal model controller (IMC) based PID method is used for tuning the outer loop controller. Autotuning based on relay feedback or the Ziegler-Nichols method can be used for tuning an inner loop controller. A tuning parameter (λ) that is used to tune IMC-PID is used as a time constant of a setpoint filter that is used for reducing the peak overshoot. The method has been tested successfully on many low order processes.