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第 25 讲:反馈

本讲内容:反馈的应用及其影响,包括逆系统设计、非理想元件补偿、使不稳定系统稳定、跟踪,以及反馈导致的失稳;连续时间与离散时间系统的基本反馈方程;根轨迹分析,包括闭环极点方程、端点、相角条件和相关性质;增益裕度与相位裕度。

授课教师:艾伦·V. 奥本海姆教授

英文字幕稿

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[MUSIC PLAYING]

PROFESSOR: During the course, we've developed a number of

very powerful and useful tools.

And we've seen how these can be used in designing and

analyzing systems.

For example, for filtering, for modulation, et cetera.

I'd like to conclude this series of lectures with an

introduction to one more important topic.

Namely, the analysis of feedback systems.

And one of the principle reasons that we have left this

discussion to the last part of the course is so that we can

exploit some of the ideas that we've just developed in some

of the previous lectures.

Namely, the tools afforded us by Laplace and z-transforms.

Now, as I had indicated in one of the very first lectures, a

common example of a feedback system is the problem of,

let's say balancing a broom, or in the case of that lecture

balancing my son's horse in the palm of your hand.

And kind of the idea there is that what that relies on, in

order to make that a stable system, is feedback.

In that particular case, visual feedback.

That specific problem, the one of balancing something, let's

say in the palm of your hand, is an example of a problem,

which is commonly referred to as the inverted pendulum.

And it's one that we will actually be analyzing in a

fair amount of detail not in this lecture,

but in the next lecture.

But let me just kind of indicate what some of the

issues are.

Let me describe this in the context not of balancing a

broom on your hand, but let's say that we have a mechanical

system which consists of a cart.

And the cart can move, let's say in one dimension, and it

has mounted on it a bar, a rod with a weight on the top, and

it pivots around the base.

So that essentially represents the inverted pendulum.

So that system can be, more or less, depicted as I've

indicated here.

And this is the cart that can move along the x-axis.

And here we have a pivot point, a rod, a

weight at the top.

And then, of course, there are several forces acting on this.

There is an acceleration that can be applied to the cart,

and that will be thought of as the external input.

And then on the pendulum itself, on the weight, there

is the force of gravity.

And then typically, a set of external disturbances that

might represent, for example, air currents, or wind, or

whatever, that will attempt to destabilize the system.

Specifically, to have the pendulum fall down.

Now, if we look at this system in, more or less, a

straightforward way, what we have then are the system

dynamics and several inputs, one of which is the external

disturbances and a second is the acceleration, which is the

external acceleration that's applied.

And the output of the system can be thought of as the

angular displacement of the pendulum.

Which if we want it balanced, we would like that angular

displacement to be equal to 0.

Now, if we know exactly what the system dynamics are and if

we knew exactly what the external disturbances are,

then in principle, we could design an acceleration.

Namely, an input.

That would exactly generate 0 output.

In other words, the angle would be equal to 0.

But as you can imagine, just as it's basically impossible

to balance a broom in the palm of your hand with you eyes

closed, what is very hard to ascertain in advance are what

the various dynamics and disturbances are.

And so more typically what you would think of doing is

measuring the output angle, and then using that

measurement to somehow influence the applied

acceleration or force.

And that, then, is an example of a feedback system.

So we would measure the output angle and generate an input

acceleration, which is some function of what that

output angle is.

And if we choose the feedback dynamics correctly, then in

fact, we can drive this output to 0.

This is one example of a system which is inherently

unstable because if we left it to its own devices, the

pendulum would simply fall down.

And essentially, by applying feedback, what we're trying to

do is stabilize this inherently unstable system.

And we'll talk a little bit more about that specific

application of feedback shortly.

Another common example of feedback is in positioning or

tracking systems, and I indicate one here which

corresponds to the problem of positioning a telescope, which

is mounted on a rotating platform.

So in a system of that type, for example, I indicate here

the rotating platform and the telescope.

It's driven by a motor.

And again, we could imagine, in principle, the possibility

of driving this to the desired angle by choosing an

appropriate applied input voltage.

And as long as we know such things as what the

disturbances are that influence the telescope mount

and what the characteristics of the motor are, in principle

we could in fact carry this out in a form which is

referred to as open loop.

Namely, we can choose an appropriate input voltage to

drive the motor to set the platform angle at the desired

angular position.

However, again, there are enough unknowns in a problem

like that, so that one is motivated to employ feedback.

Namely, to make a measurement of the output angle and use

that in a feedback loop to influence the drive for the

motor, so that the telescope platform is positioned

appropriately.

So if we look at this in a feedback context, we would

then take the measured output angle and the measured output

angle would be fed back and compared

with the desired angle.

And the difference between those, which essentially is

the error between the platform positioning and the desired

position would be put perhaps through an appropriate gain or

attenuation and used as the excitation to the motor.

So in the mechanical or physical system, that would

correspond to measuring the angle, let's say with a

potentiometer.

So here we're measuring the angle and we have an output,

which is proportional to that measured angle.

And then we would use feedback, comparing the

measured angle to some proportionality factor

multiplying the desired angle.

So here we have the desired angle, again through some type

of potentiometer.

The two are compared.

Out of the comparator, we basically have an indication

of what the difference is, and that represents an error

between the desired and the true angle.

And then that is used through perhaps an amplifier to

control the motor.

And in that case, of course, when the error goes to 0, that

means that the actual angle and the

desired angle are equal.

And in fact, in that case also with this system, the input to

the motor is, likewise, equal to 0.

Now, as I've illustrated it here, it tends to be in the

context of a continuous time or analog system.

And in fact, another very common way of doing

positioning or tracking is to instead implement the feedback

using a discrete-time or digital system.

And so in that case, we would basically take the position

output as it's measured, sample it, essentially convert

that to a digital discrete-time signal.

And then that is used in conjunction with the desired

angle, which both form inputs to this processor.

And the output of that is converted, let's say, back to

an analog or continuous-time voltage and used

to drive the motor.

Now, you could ask, why would you go to a digital or

discrete-time measurement rather than doing it the way I

showed on the previous overlay which seemed relatively

straightforward?

And the reason, principally, is that in the context of a

digital implementation of the feedback process, often you

can implement a better controlled and often also,

more sophisticated algorithm for the feedback dynamics.

So that you can take a count, perhaps not only of the angle

itself, but also of the rate of change of angle.

And in fact, the rate of change of the rate

of change of angle.

So the system, as it's shown there then, basically has a

discrete-time or digital feedback loop around a

continuous time system.

Now, this is an example of, in fact, a more general way in

which discrete-time feedback is used

with continuous systems.

And let me indicate, in general, what the character or

block diagram of such a system might be.

Typically, if we abstract away from the telescope positioning

system, we might have a more general

continuous-time system.

And around which we want to apply some feedback, which we

could do with a continuous-time system or with

a discrete-time system by first converting these signals

to discrete-time signals.

Then, processing that with a discrete-time system.

And then, through an appropriate interpolation

algorithm, we would then convert that back to a

continuous-time signal.

And the difference between the input signal and this

continuous-time signal which is fed back, then forms the

excitation to the system that essentially

we're trying to control.

And in many systems of this type, the advantage is that

this system can be implemented in a very reproducible way,

either with a digital computer or with a microprocessor.

And although we're not going to go into this in any detail

in this lecture, there is some discussion

of this in the text.

Essentially, if we make certain assumptions about this

particular feedback system, we can move the continuous to

discrete-time converter up to this point and to this point,

and we can move the interpolating system outside

the summer.

And what happens in that case is that we end up with what

looks like an inherently discrete-time feedback system.

So, in fact, if we take those steps, then what we'll end up

with for a feedback system is a system that essentially can

be analyzed as a discrete-time system.

Here we have what is, in the forward path, is basically the

continuous-time system with the interpolator at one end

and the continuous to discrete-time converter

at the other end.

And then we have whatever system it was in the feedback

loop-- discrete-time--

that shows up in this feedback loop.

Well, I show this mainly to emphasize the fact, although

there are some steps there that we obviously left out.

I show that mainly to emphasize the fact that

feedback arises not just in the context of continuous-time

systems, but also the analysis of discrete-time feedback

systems becomes important.

Perhaps because we have used discrete-time feedback around

a continuous-time system.

But also perhaps because the feedback system is inherently

discrete-time.

And let me just illustrate one, or indicate one example

in which that might arise.

This is an example which is also discussed in somewhat

more detail in the text.

But basically, population studies, for example,

represent examples of

discrete-time feedback systems.

Where let's say that we have some type of model for

population growth.

And since people come in integer amounts that

represents essentially the output of any population

model, essentially or inherently

represents a sequence.

Namely, it's indexed on an integer variable.

And typically, models for population growth

are unstable systems.

You can kind of imagine that because if you take these

simple models of population, what happens is that in any

generation, the number of people, or animals, or

whatever it is that this is modeling, grows essentially

exponentially with the size of the previous generation.

Now, where does the feedback come in?

Well, the feedback typically comes in, in incorporating in

the overall model various retarding factors.

For example, as the population increases, the food supply

becomes more limited.

And that essentially is a feedback process that acts to

retard the population growth.

And so an overall model--

somewhat simplified--

for a population system is the open loop model in the absence

of retarding factors.

And then, very often the retarding factors can be

described as being related to the size of the population.

And those essentially act to reduce the overall input to

the population model.

And so population studies are one very common example of

discrete-time feedback systems.

Well, what we want to look at and understand are the basic

properties of feedback systems.

And to do that, let's look at the basic block diagram and

equations for feedback systems, either

continuous-time or discrete-time.

Let's begin with the continuous-time case.

And now what we've done is simply abstract out any of the

applications to a fairly general system, in which we

have a system H of s in what's referred to as the forward

path, and a system G of s in the feedback path.

The input to the system H of s is the difference between the

input to the overall system and the output of

the feedback loop.

And I draw your attention to the fact that what we

illustrate here and what we're

analyzing is negative feedback.

Namely, this output is subtracted from the input.

And that's done more for reasons of convention then for

any other reasons.

It's typical to do that and appropriate certainly in some

feedback systems, but not all.

And the output of the adder is commonly referred to as the

error signal, indicating that it's the difference between

the signal fed back and the input to the overall system.

Now, if we want to analyze the feedback system, we would do

that essentially by writing the appropriate equations.

In generating the equivalent system function for the

overall system, it's best done in the frequency or Laplace

transform domain rather than in the time domain.

And let me just indicate what the steps

are that are involved.

And there are a few steps of algebra that I'll leave in

your hands.

But basically, if we look at this feedback system, we can

label, of course-- since the output is y of t, we can label

the Laplace transform of the output as Y of s.

And we also have Y of s as the input here.

Because this is the system function, the Laplace

transform of r of t is simply the Laplace transform of this

input, which is Y of s times G of s.

So here we have Y of s times G of s.

At the adder, the input here is x of s.

And so the Laplace transform of the error signal is simply

x of s minus r of s, which is Y of s G of s.

So this is minus Y of s G of s.

That's the Laplace transform of the error signal.

The Laplace transform of the output of this system is

simply this expression times H of s.

So that's what we have here.

But what we have here we already called Y of s.

So in fact, we can simply say that these two expressions

have to be equal.

And so we've essentially done the analysis, saying that

those two expressions are equal.

Let's solve for Y of s over x of s, which is the overall

system function.

And if we do that, what we end up with for the overall system

function is the algebraic expression

that I indicate here.

It's H of s divided by 1 plus G of s H of s.

Said another way, it's the system function in the open

loop forward path divided by 1 plus, what's referred to as

the loop gain, G of s times H of s.

Let's just look back up at the block diagram.

G of s times H of s is simply the gain around the entire

loop from this point around to this point.

So the overall system function is the gain in the forward

path divided by 1 plus the loop gain, which is H of s

times G of s.

Now, none of the equations that we wrote had relied

specifically on this being continuous-time.

We just did some algebra and we used the system function

property of the systems.

And so, pretty obviously, the same kind of algebraic

procedure would work in discrete-time.

And so, in fact, if we carried out a discrete-time analysis

rather than a continuous-time analysis, we would simply end

up with exactly the same system and exactly the same

equation for the overall system function.

The only difference being that here things are a function of

z, whereas if I just flip back the other

overlay, we simply have--

previously everything is function of t and in the

frequency domain s.

In the discrete-time case, we've simply replaced in the

time domain, the independent variable by n.

And in the frequency domain, the independent variable by z.

So what we see is that we have a basic feedback equation, and

that feedback equation is exactly the same for

continuous-time and discrete-time.

Although we have to be careful about what implications we

draw, depending on whether we're talking about

continuous-time or discrete-time.

Now, to illustrate the importance of feedback, let's

look at a number of common applications.

And also, as we talk about these applications, what will

see is that while these applications and context in

which feedback is used are extremely useful and powerful,

they fall out in an almost straightforward way from this

very simple feedback equation that we've just derrived.

Well, the examples that I want to just talk about are, first

of all, the use of feedback in amplifier design.

And we're not going to design amplifiers in detail, but what

I'd like to illustrate is the basic principle behind why

feedback is useful in designing amplifiers.

In particular, how it plays a role in compensating for a

non-constant frequency response.

So that's one context that we'll talk about.

A second that I'll indicate is the use of feedback for

implementing inverse systems.

And the third, which we indicated in the case of the

inverted pendulum, is an important context in which

feedback is used is in stabilizing unstable systems.

And what we want to see is why or how a feedback system or

the basic feedback equation, in fact, let's us do each of

these various things.

Well, let's begin with amplifier design.

And let's suppose that we've built somehow without

feedback, an amplifier that is terrific in terms of its gain,

but has the problem that whereas we might like the

amplifier to have a very flat frequency response, in fact

the frequency response of this amplifier is not constant.

And what we'd like to do is compensate for that.

Well, it turns out, interestingly, that if we

embed the amplifier in a feedback loop where in the

feedback path we incorporate an attenuator, then in fact,

we can compensate for that

non-constant frequency response.

Well, let's see how that works out from

the feedback equation.

We have the basic feedback equation that we derived.

And we want to look at frequency response, so we'll

look specifically at the Fourier transform.

And of course, the frequency response of the overall system

is the frequency response of the Fourier transform of the

output divided by the input.

Using the feedback equation that we had just arrived, that

has, in the numerator, the frequency response in the

forward path divided by 1 plus the loop gain, which is H of j

omega times k.

And this is the key.

Because here, if we choose k times H of j omega to be very

large, much larger than 1, then what happens is that

these two cancel out.

H of j omega here and in the denominator will cancel out as

long as this term dominates.

And in that case, under that assumption, the overall system

function is approximately 1/k.

Well, if k is constant as a function of frequency, then we

somehow magically have ended up with an amplifier that has

a flat frequency response.

Well, it seems like we're getting something for nothing.

And actually, we're not.

There's a price that we pay for that.

Because notice the fact that in order to get gain out of

the overall system, k must be less than 1.

So this has to correspond to attenuator.

And we also require that k, which is less than 1, times

the gain of the original amplifier, that that product

be greater than 1.

And the implication of this, without tracking it in detail

right now, the implication in this is that whereas we

flatten the frequency response, we have in fact paid

a price for that.

The price that we've paid is that the gain is somewhat

reduced from the gain that we had before the feedback.

Because k times h must be much larger than 1, but the gain is

proportional to 1/k.

Now, one last point to make related to that.

One could ask, well, why is it any easier to make k flat with

frequency than to build an amplifier with a flat

frequency response?

The reason is that the gain in the feedback path is an

attenuator, not an amplifier.

And generally, attenuation with a flat frequency response

is much easier to get than gain is.

For example, a resistor, which attenuates, would generally

have a flatter frequency response than a

very high-gain amplifier.

So that's one common example of feedback.

And feedback, in fact, is very often used in high-quality

amplifier systems.

Another very common example in which feedback is used is in

implementing inverse systems.

Now, what I mean by that is, suppose that we have a system,

which I indicate here, P of s--

input and output.

And what we would like to do is implement a system which is

the inverse of this system.

Namely, has a Laplace transform or system function

which is 1 over P of s.

For example, we may have measured a particular system

and what we would like to design is a

compensator for it.

And the question is, by putting this in a feedback

loop, can we, in fact, implement the

inverse of this system?

The answer to that is yes.

And the feedback system, in that case, is

as I indicate here.

So here what we choose to do is to put the system whose

inverse we're trying to generate in the feedback loop.

And in this case, a high-gain in the forward path.

Now for this situation, k is, again, a constant.

But in fact, it's a high-gain constant.

And now if we look at the feedback equation, then what

we see is an equation of this form.

And notice that if k times P of s is large compared with

one, then this term dominates.

The gain in the forward path cancels out.

And what we're left with is a system function, which is just

1 over P of s.

And a system of this type is used in a

whole variety of contexts.

One very common one is in building what are called

logarithmic devices or logarithmic amplifiers.

Ones in which the input-output characteristic is logarithmic.

It's common to do that with a diode that has an exponential

characteristic.

And using that with feedback--

as feedback around a high-gain operational amplifier.

And by the way, the logarithmic

amplifier is nonlinear.

What I've said here is linear, or the

analysis here was linear.

But that example, in fact, suggests something which is

true, which is that same basic idea, in fact, can be used

often in the context of nonlinear feedback and

nonlinear feedback systems.

Well, as a final example, what I'd like to analyze is the

context in which we would consider

stabilizing unstable systems.

And I had indicated that one context in which that arises

and which we will be analyzing in the next lecture is the

inverted pendulum.

And in that situation, or in a situation where we're

attempting to stabilize an unstable system, we have now

in the forward path a system which is unstable.

And in the feedback path, we've put an appropriate

system so that the overall system, in fact, is stable.

Now, how can stability arise out of having an initially

unstable system?

Well, again, if we look at the basic feedback equation, the

overall system function is the system function for the

forward path divided by 1 plus the loop gain, G of

s times H of s.

And for stability what we want to examine are the roots of 1

plus G of s times H of s.

And in particular, the poles are the zeroes of that factor.

And as long as we choose G of s, so that the

poles of this term--

I'm sorry, so that the zeroes of this term are in the left

half of the s-plane, then what we'll

end up with is stability.

So stability is dependent not just on h of s for the

closed-loop system, but on 1 plus G of s times H of s.

And this kind of notion is used in lots of situations.

I indicated the inverted pendulum.

Another very common example is in some very high-performance

aircraft where the basic aircraft system

is an unstable system.

But in fact, it's stabilized by putting the right kind of

feedback dynamics around it.

And those feedback dynamics might, in fact, involve the

pilot as well.

Now, for the system that we just talked about, the

stability was described in terms of a

continuous-time system.

And the stability condition that we end up with, of

course, relates to the zeroes of this denominator term.

And we require for stability that the real parts of the

associated roots be in the left half of the s-plane.

Exactly the same kind of analysis, in terms of

stability, applies in discrete-time.

That is, in discrete-time, as we saw previously, the basic

discrete-time feedback system is exactly the same, except

that the independent variable is now an integer variable

rather than a continuous variable.

The feedback equation is exactly the same.

So to analyze stability of the feedback system, we would want

to look at the zeroes of 1 plus G of z times H of z.

So again, it's those zeroes that affect stability.

And the principal difference between the continuous-time

and discrete-time cases is the fact that the stability

condition in discrete-time is different than it is in

continuous-time.

Namely, in continuous-time, we care for stability about poles

of the overall system being in the left half of the s-plane

or the right half of the s-plane.

In discrete-time, what we care about is whether the poles are

inside or outside the unit circle.

So in the discrete-time case, what we would impose for

stability is that the zeroes have a magnitude which

is less than 1.

So the basic analysis is the same, but the details of the

stability condition, of course, are different.

Now, what I've just indicated is that feedback can be used

to stabilize an unstable system.

And as you can imagine there's the other side of the coin.

Namely, if you start with a stable system and put feedback

around it, if you're not careful what can happen, in

fact, is that you can destabilize the system.

So there's always the potential hazard, unless it's

something you want to have happen, that feedback around

what used to be a stable system now generates a system

which is unstable.

And there are lots of examples of that.

One very common example is in audio systems.

And this is probably an example that you're somewhat

familiar with.

Basically, an audio system, if you have the speaker and the

microphone in any kind of proximity to each other is, in

fact, a feedback system.

Well, first of all, the audio input to the microphone

consists of the external audio inputs, and the external audio

inputs might, for example, be my voice.

It might be the room noise.

And in fact, as we'll illustrate shortly if I'm not

careful, might in fact be the output from a speaker, which

represents feedback.

That audio, of course, after appropriate amplification

drives a speaker.

And if, in fact, the speaker is, let's say has any

proximity to the microphone, then there can be a certain

amount of the output of the speaker that feeds back around

and is fed back into the microphone.

Now, the system function associated with the feedback I

indicate here as a constant times e to the minus s times

capital T. The e to the minus s times capital T represents

the fact that there is, in general, some delay between

the time delay between the speaker output and the input

that it generates to the microphone.

The reason for that delay of course, being that there may

be some distance between the speaker and the microphone.

And then the constant K2 that I have in the feedback path

represents the fact that between the speaker and the

microphone, there may be some attenuation.

So if I have, for example, a speaker as I happen to have

here, and I were to have that speaker putting out what in

fact I'm putting into the microphone, or the output of

the microphone, then what we have is a feedback path.

And the feedback path is from the microphone, through the

speaker, out of the speaker, back into the microphone.

And the feedback path is from here to the microphone.

And the characteristics or frequency response or system

function is associated with the characteristics of

propagation or transmission.

If I were to move closer to the speaker and I, by the way,

don't have the speaker on right now.

And I'm sure you all understand why.

If I move closer, then the constant K2 gets what?

Gets larger.

And if I move further away the constant K2 gets smaller.

Well, let's look at an analysis of this and see what

it is, or why it is, that in fact we get an

instability in terms--

or that an instability is predicted by the basic

feedback equation.

Now, notice first of all, that we're talking about positive

feedback here.

And just simply substituting the appropriate system

functions into our basic feedback equation, we have an

equation that says that the overall system function is

given by the forward gain, which is the gain of the

amplifier between the microphone and the speaker,

divided by 1 minus--

and the minus because we have positive feedback--

the overall loop gain, which is K1, K2, e to the minus s

capital T. And these two gains, K1 and K2 are assumed

to be positive, and generally are positive.

So in order for us to--

well, if we want to look at the poles of the system, then

we want to look at the zeroes of this denominator.

And the zeroes of this denominator occur at values of

s such that e to the minus s capital T is equal to 1 over

K1 times K2.

And equivalently that says that the poles of the closed

loop system occur at 1 over capital T, and capital T is

related to the time delay.

1 over capital T times the log to the base e of K1 times K2.

Well, for stability we want these poles to all be in the

left half of the s-plane.

And what that means then is that for stability what we

require is that K1 times K2 be less than 1.

In other words, we require that the overall loop gain be

less-- the magnitude of the loop gain be less than 1.

If it's not, then what we generate is an instability.

And just to illustrate that, let's turn the speaker on.

And what we'll demonstrate is feedback.

Right now the system is stable.

And I'm being careful to keep my distance from the speaker.

As I get closer, K2 will increase.

And as K2 increases, eventually the poles will move

into the right half of the s-plane, or they'll try to.

What will happen is that the system will start to oscillate

and go into nonlinear distortion.

So as I get closer, you can hear that we get feedback, we

get oscillation.

And I guess neither you nor I can take too much of that.

But you can see that what's happening--

if we can just turn the speaker off now.

You can see that what's happening is that as K2

increases, the poles are moving on to the j omega axis,

the system starts to oscillate.

They won't actually move into the right half plane because

there are nonlinearities that inherently control the system.

OK, so what we've seen in today's lecture is the basic

analysis equation and a few of the applications.

And one application, or one both application and hazard

that we've talked about, is the application in which we

may stabilize unstable systems.

Or if we're not careful, destabilize stable systems.

As I've indicated at several times during the lecture, one

common example of an unstable system which feedback can be

used to stabilize is the inverted pendulum, which I've

referred to several times.

And in the next lecture, what I'd like to do is focus in on

a more detailed analysis of this.

And what we'll see, in fact, is that the feedback dynamics,

the form of the feedback dynamics are important with

regard to whether you can and can't stabilize the system.

Interestingly enough, for this particular system, as we'll

see in the next lecture, if you simply try to measure the

angle and feed that back that, in fact, you can't stabilize

the system.

What it requires is not only the angle, but some

information about the rate of change of angle.

But we'll see that in much more

detail in the next lecture.

Thank you.