Technology enables control loop performance monitoring

Technologies continue to evolve and become more complex. Mobile devices are amplified when connected to cloud services, generating endless information and expansive computing experiences.

Industrial digital control systems enable better, safer and more efficient operations. Most systems relied on a number of proportional–integral–derivative (PID) loops to control analog production actions involving process variables. Applying these systems required skilled designers and engineers, but the results enabled operators to control their systems.

Operators can be equipped with engineering-grade technology, effectively creating an army of active participants. While some PID loops can be manually tuned by technicians, there are plenty of vexing cases where control loop performance monitoring (CLPM) software is capable of processing large quantities of data and returning recommendations for optimal tuning parameters. As with mobile devices, CLPM software is an example of packaging difficult mathematics and data gathering technology into a user-friendly format.

Control Station’s Robert Rice explains power spectrum, cross correlation and automatic PID modeling in this article from our partner publication, Processing.