Kalman Filtering for Feedback Sensor Noise Causing Problem with PID Control's Derivative Action

This paper designs an automatic control system with PID controller and Kalman filter when the feedback sensor noise is particularly troublesome for a PID controller's derivative action. As a target plant, a ball & beam system can be considered and a control system design procedure is verified through computer simulations. It is shown that there can be performance degradation due to feedback sensor noise that may occur during the feedback process. Moreover, PID controller's derivative action is shown to causes the feedback sensor noise in the process variable to be amplified and reflected in the controller output with causing adverse effects. To improve these problems, the Kalman filter with recursive formulation and computational efficiency is applied for the control system. It is verified that the designed automatic control system with PID controller and Kalman filter not only satisfies all performance conditions but also has the ability to reduce noise.