The aim of the paper is to compare the performance of Fractional order (FOPID) controller to that of a traditional PID controller. In this work a stable 3rd order plant is taken and controlled by both controllers and the performance of both the controllers are analysed using MATLAB/Simulink. Here, Ziegler-Nichols method is used for the tuning of PID controller and a stable 3rd order system is obtained by using the concept of Routh's stability criterion. It has been found that by varying the order of controller; a better performance can be obtained compared to the traditional PID controller. Keywords: Fractional order controller, PID controller, Fractional order system, Fractional capacitor
I. INTRODUCTIONController is a unit which generates a control signal to the final element, based on a measured deviation of the controlled variable from the set point [1]. There are two types of controller modes-Continuous and Discontinuous. A proportional-integralderivative (PID) controller, is a continuous controller which is also known as three term controller, is a control loop feedback mechanism used for applications requiring continuously modulated control such as industrial control systems and a variety of other applications. The popularity of PID controllers in industrial applications are because of their simplicity, robustness, near-optimal performance and a wide range of applicability [1]. A PID controller continuously calculates an error value as the difference between a desired set point and a measured process variable and applies a correction based on proportional, integral and derivative terms (denoted as P, I and D respectively) which give their name to the controller [1]. A fractional order system can be defined as a dynamical system which can be modelled by a fractional differential equation which contains derivatives of non-integer order. The fractional order system can also be defined as an area where biochemistry, medicine and electrical engineering overlap which gives rise to a number of new potential applications [2,3]. A generalization of PID controller is given by the fractional order PID controller presented as PI D [4]. PID controller is designed with the aim to achieve high performance which includes small settling time and low percentage overshoot. Improvisation in terms of performance of PID controllers can further be achieved by appropriate settings of fractional-I and fractional-D actions, which is termed as fractional order PID controller [5]. Fractional order PID controller is realized by replacing the traditional capacitor of PID controller with fractional capacitor. Fractional capacitor (FC) is a passive circuit element that gives phase angle between 0 to -90 degree and remains constant with frequency [6,7]. The impedance of a fractional capacitor (FC) is expressed as