Dominant pole placement with fractional order PID controllers: D-decomposition approach

Dominant pole placement is a useful technique designed to deal with the problem of controlling a high order or time-delay systems with low order controller such as the PID controller. This paper tries to solve this problem by using D-decomposition method. Straightforward analytic procedure makes this method extremely powerful and easy to apply. This technique is applicable to a wide range of transfer functions: with or without time-delay, rational and non-rational ones, and those describing distributed parameter systems. In order to control as many different processes as possible, a fractional order PID controller is introduced, as a generalization of classical PID controller. As a consequence, it provides additional parameters for better adjusting system performances. The design method presented in this paper tunes the parameters of PID and fractional PID controller in order to obtain good load disturbance response with a constraint on the maximum sensitivity and sensitivity to noise measurement. Good set point response is also one of the design goals of this technique. Numerous examples taken from the process industry are given, and D-decomposition approach is compared with other PID optimization methods to show its effectiveness. •The problem of dominant pole design with fractional order PID controllers is investigated.•A novel approach based on D-decomposition technique is proposed for solving this problem.•This method is applicable to rational and non-rational transfer functions, with or without time delay, and those describing distributed parameter systems.•Numerous examples from process industry are given, and it is shown that fractional order PID controller gives better performance/robustness tradeoff when compared with conventional PID controller.