National Instruments announced the NI LabVIEW 8.5 Control Design and Simulation Module, an extension to the LabVIEW graphical system-design platform.
The module helps users analyse open-loop model behaviour, design closed-loop controllers, simulate systems and create real-time implementations.
New design functions include analytical proportional-integral-derivative control intended to improve system-loop stability and model predictive control for multiple-input, multiple-output systems. The module also expands LabVIEW MathScript support with eighteen new .m-file functions for tasks including creating models, defining model interconnections and analysing system stability.
“The LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module significantly reduced the time we needed to develop dynamic positioning for a split hopper barge,” says Miguel Taboada, a control engineer at SEAPLACE, an offshore and shipbuilding engineering company in Madrid. “The module made it easy to simulate our various control algorithms and test the program code without hardware. Once we obtained the required simulation results, we could reuse the graphical code created with the module, deploy it on real hardware and debug it, all within one day.”
Analytical PID is a new time-saving function in the module. Previously, users established appropriate PID-controller parameters through trial-and-error tuning. The analytical PID function can automatically find sets of PID parameter values for a specified system model, helping users avoid unwanted behaviour during development and improve system stability.
The current module also includes model predictive control, an algorithm used in industry to control MIMO systems in complex process-control applications. The MPC function allows users to create controllers that adjust the regulator before a change in the output set point occurs. Combined with conventional feedback, prediction of model behaviour is intended to produce smoother controller adjustments closer to optimal values for each control action.
“Model predictive control is a valuable industrial technique that may not be as accessible to engineers unfamiliar with text-based programming,” says Michael Grimble, technical director of ISC Ltd. and professor of industrial systems at the Industrial Control Centre at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow. “By adding MPC functionality to the LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module, National Instruments provides a very intuitive tool with a simple real-time-capable implementation interface. This should offer substantial benefits to users working on process or machine-control applications in fields such as automotive and aerospace, and is also useful in higher education, where predicting model behaviour is often a critical step in developing sophisticated controllers.”
The LabVIEW Control Design and Simulation Module integrates with NI software including the LabVIEW Statechart Module for event-based controller design and simulation. It also integrates with the LabVIEW Real-Time Module for rapid-control prototyping, hardware-in-the-loop applications and system deployment. Users can combine the module with the LabVIEW System Identification Toolkit and NI I/O hardware to develop measurement-based controllers.
