2/10/2018 Control Tutorials for MATLAB and Simulink - Extras: Pole-Zero Cancellation

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INTRODUCTION CRUISE CONTROL MOTOR SPEED

SYSTEM

MODELING Extras: Pole-Zero Cancellation

ANALYSIS
When an open-loop system has right-half-plane poles (in which case the
system is unstable), one idea to alleviate the problem is to add zeros at the
CONTROL
same locations as the unstable poles, to in effect cancel the unstable poles.

PID Unfortunately, this method is unreliable. The problem is that when an added

zero does not exactly cancel the corresponding unstable pole (which is
ROOT LOCUS
always the case in real life), a part of the root locus will be trapped in the
FREQUENCY right-half plane. This causes the closed-loop response to be unstable. The

following example demonstrates this concept.

STATE-SPACE

DIGITAL
Suppose we have the open-loop transfer function given below.

(1)
SIMULINK

MODELING
Create a new m-file, and enter following code. Running this m-file should
CONTROL generate the following root locus plot:.

s = tf('s');
P = 1/(3*s^2 + 2*s - 1);

rlocus(P)

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We see that one of the open-loop poles is in the right-half plane. The

closed-loop response will then be unstable if the gain is selected such that

one of the closed-loop poles is in the right-half plane. We can make this
system stable by choosing the correct gain, but let's see if we can make the

system stable by performing a pole-zero cancellation. Inspecting the root

locus above, we see that the unstable pole is in the vicinity of s = 0.3.
Delete the rlocus command, and add the following lines into your m-file to

add a zero at 0.3.

rlocus((s - 0.3)*P)

From the new root locus you can see that the unstable pole has almost

been canceled. Now let's see what the closed-loop response looks like. Add

the following additional code to the end of your m-file.

sys_cl = feedback((s - 0.3)*P,1);

step(sys_cl,100)

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2/10/2018 Control Tutorials for MATLAB and Simulink - Extras: Pole-Zero Cancellation

The system is still unstable. The reason for this is that the zero does not

exactly cancel the unstable pole. Can we make the system stable by

moving the zero so that it's exactly on the pole? From the original transfer
function, you know that the open-loop pole is actually at 1/3. What if we put

our zero at exactly 1/3? Go back to the m-file and change the zero to 1/3 as

shown below. Rerunning the m-file will generate the root locus plot shown

below.

rlocus((s - (1/3))*P)

This time we see that the zero is right on the unstable pole (you may use

zoom command to zoom into the plot, to see that the zero is exactly on the
pole). What does the closed-loop response look like now, is it stable?

Change your m-file as shown below and run to generate the closed-loop

step response shown below.

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2/10/2018 Control Tutorials for MATLAB and Simulink - Extras: Pole-Zero Cancellation

sys_cl = feedback((s - (1/3))*P,1);

step(sys_cl,200)

It is still unstable! The response takes much longer to blow up, so we have

almost canceled the effect, but almost is not good enough when considering

stability. A system which is "almost stable" is still unstable, and its response

will go to infinity. Even in MATLAB an exact cancellation was not possible

because of numerical round-off.

From the example above, we see that the pole-zero cancellation is

theoretically okay, but practically unobtainable. Even if a perfect pole-zero

cancellation were possible, the system would not be practically

implementable because of internal stability issues. For example, if you

designed a controller with an unstable pole that cancelled a zero in the

plant, the output of the controller could grow unbounded to the point that an

actuator would saturate or the plant could reach some physical limits.

Therefore, the linear model of the plant would no longer hold and you

wouldn't get the desired cancellation effect. A solution to this example can

be found using the method introduced in the root locus tutorial.

Published with MATLAB® 9.2

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