Tuning of Linear Active Disturbance Rejection Controllers Based On Step Response Curves

Most of the controlled plants in the industrial field are complex in structure and the models are difficult to obtain, thus tuning of the controller parameters without a detailed model is critical in practice. This paper proposes a specific parameter tuning formula for second-order linear active disturbance rejection controller (LADRC) based on step response curves of the controlled plant. The proposed tuning formula is only related to the two special points on the step response curve of the plant. Simulation results for a wide range of systems show that the proposed method can achieve satisfactory performance in disturbance rejection and robustness, and the Bode plots show that this tuning method also performs well in noise suppression. The effect is also verified with a practical heater temperature control experiment.