History and Innovations of Control Systems

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 Mark Anthony S. Arcayan
Student, Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Enginering
Visayas Sate University
Baybay City, Philippines
email address: mark112arcayan@gmail.com

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Abstract—The History and Innovations of Control Systems are
distinctive and gone through a lot of developments overtime.
To understand its journey, historical information written in
books or published online are good alternatives. From this,
numerous control system devices and control system
performance and design theory techniques are attested. As a
result, the contemporary state of control systems are truly
rooted from the principles employed in the past and are/will
always keep on improving.
Keywords—feedback control system, Liquid-level control,
Water clock, oil lamp, Mechanical temperature Control, Steam
pressure control, flyball speed governor, Control system
performance and design theory
I. INTRODUCTION
The works of feedback control systems have been
around for a long time; dated back as far as humanity could
tell. Through the help of our historical records, we can
identify several of these man-made feedback control system
devices which improved from time to time. Additionally, we
can also look at some discoveries on several techniques in
optimizing different control system configurations.
II. OBJECTIVES
A. First Objective
To identify several human-designed control systems that
exist in the past.
B. Second Objective
To understand the principles that govern in selected
control systems in the past.
C. Third Objective
To know several developments on control system
performance.
III. METHODOLOGY
A. Method used to achieve the First Objective
Tangible sources of information such as books or even e-
books that are related to control systems are good resources
of accessing some historical information on control systems.
Most books put a history section at the beginning of the 1st
chapter.
B. Method used to achieve the First Objective
By accessing some articles on the internet or even in
some parts of related books, a thorough explanation of the
working principles of each control systems can be achieved.
It is also preferable to just search the inventor’s biography
of a particular control systems rather than the control system
itself because some of its (the control system alone) results
on the internet are not coherent to the idea you will really
need.
C. Method used to achieve the Third Objective
Reading books or any articles from the internet relating
to the developments of control systems performance is a
good choice to understand its background. This topic can
also be found on the first part of some books related to
control systems.
IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
Before the Greeks, both the Egyptians and the Chinese
invented the clepsydra (a water vessel with an orifice at the
bottom) and the sundial respectively for the purpose of
measuring time. But sundials don’t work on night time
while clepsydra don’t output time at constant rate. To solve
these problem, Ktesibios, a Greek scholar invented his
Water clock around 300 B.C. which is an improvement of
the clepsydra. In order to give a desire constant time
reading, he design a system that maintains a constant level
of water inside a vessel which supplies a tickling water to
another smaller container that has a float bulb mechanism.
This mechanism is responsible for telling time via the
graduated time scale attached to it and the amount of water
that flows to the vessel [1].
Another remarkable contribution of liquid-level control
was done by Philon of Byzantium. He was working on oil
lamps and his goal was to have a distinct amount of oil to be
supplied in the lamp. The oil lamp configuration was consist
of two vessels; the oil storage and the oil pan where the
floating wick is located. The oil storage is located on the
upper portion while the oil pan is resting below it and both
containers were connected by a pipe and a capillary tube.
Both the capillary tube and the pipe has their opening ends
on the surface of the oil pan while the other ends connect the
oil storage on the bottom and top respectively. When the oil
level at the oil pan drops to a level lower than the opening
end of the pipe, air will infiltrate through the pipe thus,
pushing the oil inside the oil storage to flow through the
capillary tube and then supplying down to the oil pan.
Otherwise, no oil flow may happen on the capillary tube
because of the absence of air inflow through the pipe.
Another related works on liquid-level control was also
published by Heron of Alexandria around 1st century B.C. in
his famous book known as “Pneumatica” [2].
Pressure Vessel was one of old technologies used by
humanity and this type of innovation also requires
maximum safety. A Steam pressure safety Valve control
mechanism was used by Denis Papins around 1681 which is
installed on the top of a pressure vessel that contains steam
fluid. A calculated weight is attached on top of the safety
valve which adjust the desire or allowable internal pressure
of the steam inside the vessel [3].
The emerging era of industrial revolution around the 17 th
and 18th century improved the quality of life of our human
civilization. One example was livestock, in which a scholar
from Holland, Cornelis Drebbel invented a Mechanical
Temperature Control Egg-Hatchery which increased
production. This device used two vials, Alcohol and
Mercury that serve as feedback sensors attached inside the
walls of the hatchery which respond to the internal
temperature condition. A float bulb is attached from the
vials to a regulator which adjusts the intensity of the flame
inside. Another example was the first automatic feedback
controller used in the steam engine industry and it was
designed by James Watt known as the “Flyball Governor
Speed Controller” in 1769. Its sole purpose was to regulate Nowadays, control systems are already dominating our
the speed of the steam engine by adjusting the steam valve technological society. It keeps on changing from time to
responsible for supplying power to the engine. A flyball time as a result of seeking a robust design as possible. It has
governor mechanism was used to capture the instantaneous already been transformed from the classical style to the
speed of the output shaft via mechanical linkages and gears digital control system. Numerous applications can be found
and used it to control the steam valve. The flyball spins in the space industry especially on navigation, positioning
closer or farther from its axis depending on the resulting and data acquisition. Not only that, a lot of innovations are
inertia generated from the angular speed of the output shaft also imparted in the field of manufacturing such as high-end
[4]. CNC machines and computer guided utility robots. Even in
Another feedback control system innovation that came our very own home, we can also find several devices that
during the industrial period was the windmill speed control use control systems such as our oven toasters, DVD players
by Edmund Lee in 1745 which adjust the windmill blades’ and washing machines.
angle of attack to a desired inclination that would give the
maximum output over a wide range of local wind speeds on Selected historical developments of Control Systems is
a particular area. An improvement from its blade design was listed in the table as shown [4].
established by William Cubitt in 1809 using a movable
louvers smaller than the former blade configuration [3]. 1769 James Watt’s steam Engine and Governor
A control System should need to have a good Developed.
performance and stability base on the parameters involved. 1800 Eli Whitney’s concept of interchangeable parts
This proposition was established around the 19 th century and manufacturing demonstrated in the production of
it was James Clerk Maxwell who published the stability muskets.
criterion of the third-order system based on the coefficient 1868 J.C. Maxwell formulates a mathematical model
of Differential Equation. In 1874, Eduard John Routh for a governor control of steam engine.
extended this criterion up to fifth-order in which it has been 1913 Henry Ford’s mechanized assembly machine
ignored by Maxwell. Later on, he published an award introduced for automobile production.
winning Adams Prize resulting his work to be known as the 1927 H.W. Bode analyzes feedback amplifiers.
Routh-Hurwitz Criterion for stability. In 1892, a Russian 1932 H. Nyquist develops a method for analyzing the
student of University of St. Petersburg, Alexandr stability of systems.
Mikhailovich Lyapunov extended Routh’s work on stability 1952 Numerical Control (NC) developed at
to non-linear systems. Another practical development made Massachusetts Institute of Technology for control
on the mid 1800’s was the stability of the ship’s steering of machine-tool axes.
mechanism. . In 1874, Henry Bessemer, using a gyro to 1954 George Devol develops “Programmed article
sense a ship’s motion and applying power generated by the transfer”, considered to be the first industrial
ship’s hydraulic system, moved the ship’s saloon to keep it robot design.
stable. Another method of this type was also used to 1960 First Unimate robot introduced, based on Devol;s
stabilize ships such as pendulums and other gyroscopic designs.
sensors [3]. 1970 State-variable models and optimal control
During the 20th century, more and more developments in developed.
control system performance emerged. One of these was the
1980 Robust control system design widely studied.
contribution of Nicholas Minorsky, a Russian who was
1990 Export-oriented manufacturing companies
famous for his proportional-plus-integral-plus-derivative
emphasized automation.
(PID) controller that improve the performance of automatic
1994 Feedback control widely used in automobiles.
control systems. Between 1920’s and 1930’s, H.W. Bode
and h. Nyquist at Bell Telephone Laboratories discover a 1997 First ever autonomous rover vehicle, known as
control system analysis and design techniques using Sojourner, explores the Martian Surface.
sinusoidal frequency signal. Later in 1948, an aircraft 1998- Advances in micro-and nanotechnology. First
worker Walter Evans developed a graphical technique to 2003 intelligent micro machines are developed.
plot roots of the characteristic equation for feedback control 2007 The orbital Express mission performed the first
systems at a wide range of varying parameters. This was autonomous space rendezvous and docking.
later known as the root locus analysis [3]. REFERENCES