Automatic Control System

MDE 124
Biomedical Engineering Department Dr /Ghada Kareem

Lecture-2
Block Diagram Representation of Control Systems

Introduction:
Block diagram of some systems turn out to complex such evaluation of their
performance required simplification of block diagram
• A Block Diagram is a shorthand pictorial representation of the cause-and-effect
relationship of a system.
• The interior of the rectangle representing the block usually contains a
description of or the name of the element, gain, or the symbol for the
mathematical operation to be performed on the input to yield the output.
• The arrows represent the direction of information or signal flow.

d
x y
dt
Advantage of block diagram:
1- Very simple to construct a block diagram of complicated system
2- Over all closed loop transfer function can be easily calculated using block
diagram rules

Transfer function= output /input

Disadvantage of block diagram:
Doesn’t include any information about the physical construction of the
system

Basic components of block Diagram:

1-blocks 2-Branches 3-summing point
4-Arrow 5- take off point

Summing point
• The operations of addition and subtraction have a special representation.
• The block becomes a small circle, called a summing point, with the
appropriate plus or minus sign associated with the arrows entering the circle.
• The output is the algebraic sum of the inputs.
• Any number of inputs may enter a summing point.

Some books p ut a cross in the circle

 Pick off point

Interconnections
1-Cascade Connection

In MATLAB:
G1=tf(num1,den1); G2=tf(num2,den2);
G3=tf(num3,den3); Ge=G1*G2*G3;
8/

2-Parallel connection

In MATLAB
G1=tf(num1,den1); G2=tf(num2,den2);
G3=tf(num3,den3); Ge=G1+G2+G3;
Feedback connection
How to convert from closed loop system to open loop system

We know that C(s) =G(s) E(s)………………………..(1)

B(s) = H(s)C(s)………………………………………..(2)
Where E (s) =R(s) − B(s) = R(s) − H(s)C(s)…………...(3)
Eliminating E(s) from these equations gives
C(s) = G(s) [R(s)−H(s)C(s)]
This can be written in the form
[1+G(s) H (s)] C(s) = G(s) R(s)

We can deduce transfer function as below :

C ( s) G( s)

R( s ) 1  G ( s ) H ( s )

Characteristic Equation:
• The denominator of closed loop transfer function determines the
characteristic equation of the system.
 1 G
Block ( s) H ( s)  0
Diagram Algebra for summing points:

Block Diagram Algebra for Pick/take off points

Block Diagram Reduction Rules
1. Combine all cascade blocks
2. Combine all parallel blocks
3. Eliminate all minor (interior) feedback loops
4. Shift summing points to left
5. Shift take off points to the right
6. Repeat Steps 1 to 5 until the canonical form is obtained
Some Basic Rules with Block Diagram Transformation:
Examples:
1- Reduce the Block Diagram

Step (1)
Combine all cascade blocks

Step(2): Combine all parallel blocks

Step (3) Eliminate all minor feedback loops

Example (2): Reduce the Block Diagram find transfer function
Multiple‐Inputs cases:
In feedback control system, we often encounter multiple inputs to represent a
disturbance or something else. For a linear system, we can apply the superposition
principle to solve this type of problems, i.e. to treat each input one at a time while
setting all other inputs to zeros, and then algebraically add all the outputs as
follows:
3-Reduce the system shown in Figure to a single transfer function
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