4th International Conference on Electrical Engineering (ICEE 2015)

IGEE, Boumerdes, December 13th -15th, 2015

Estimating the Time Response of Control Systems

with Fractional Order PI from Frequency Response
Nusret Tan

Ali Yce

Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Eng.,

Inonu University,
44280, Malatya, Turkey.
nusret.tan@inonu.edu.tr

Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Eng.,

Inonu University,
44280, Malatya, Turkey.
ali.yuce@inonu.edu.tr

Derek P. Atherton

Furkan Nur Deniz

Dept. of Engineering and Design,

Sussex Universtity,
Richmond Building, Falmer, Brighton, BN1 9QT, UK
d.p.atherton@sussex.ac.uk

Dept. of Electrical and Electronics Eng.,

Inonu University,
44280, Malatya, Turkey.
furkan.deniz@inonu.edu.tr

Abstract This paper deals with the time response

computation of closed loop control systems with fractional order
PI controllers using the frequency response data of the closed
loop system. The time response of fractional order transfer
functions from frequency response data was first obtained by the
authors using Fourier Series Method(FSM) and Inverse Fourier
Transform Method(IFTM). In this paper, these methods are
further extended for estimating unit step and unit impulse
responses of control systems with fractional order PI controllers
from the frequency response information of the closed loop
system.
Keywordsfractional order PI; time response; frequency
response; Fourier series; Fourier transform

I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, there have been a large number of studies
on fractional order systems. A fractional order system can be
represented by a differential equation where the order of the
derivative can be any real number. Taking the Laplace
transform of such a differential equation gives a transfer
function with a fractional order Laplace complex variable such
as s ,
R . This kind of transfer functions are called
Fractional Order Transfer Function(FOTF) [1-3]. Estimating
the time responses namely impulse and step responses of a
FOTF is a difficult problem since there is not any analytical
method for computation. Generally, integer order
approximation methods such as Continued Fractional
Expansion (CFE) method, Oustaloups method, Carlsons
method, Matsudas method, Chareffs method, least square
methods [4-10] and numerical approximation methods such as
Grnwald-Letnikov approximations [2] are used for step and
impulse response computation. There are also some methods
based on Mittag-Leffler and Gamma functions [10-11].
However, in a recent paper by the authors [12] using
frequency response data of a FOTF, the computation problem
of the time response evaluation of fractional order system was

solved. Two methods were given in [12] one is based on the

Fourier series of a square wave and therefore is called the
Fourier Series Method(FSM) and the other is based on the
Inverse Fourier Transform Method (IFTM). The results
obtained from these methods are exact since both methods use
frequency response information such as gain and phase data
and it is well known that the frequency response of a FOTF
can
be
computed
exactly
by
replacing
(j )
[cos( / 2) j sin( / 2)]
in the transfer
function. Following this study, the method has been used to
obtain the time response of closed loop fractional order
systems with time delay in [13]. In this paper we used these
methods for time response computation of closed loop control
systems with a fractional order PI controller.
There are four situations for a closed loop control systems
with a plant and controller. Both plant and controller are
integer order, both plant and controller are fractional order,
controller is fractional order and plant is integer order,
controller is integer order and plant is fractional order [14].
Generally, an integer model of a real system can be
approximately obtained however designing a fractional order
controller instead of a classical controller can be more
advantageous. Therefore, here, we studied third situation
where the controller is a fractional PI controller such as
C ( s) K p Ki / s and plant is an integer order transfer
function. Thus, methods for computing the time responses of
fractional order control systems based on frequency response
data given in [12-13] are used to find the unit step and unit
impulse responses of the closed loop system with and integer
order plant and a fractional order PI controller. Related time
response equations which depend on the controller parameters
and real part of the transfer function of the plant are derived.
Since the frequency response of a FOTF can be obtained
exactly, the time responses obtained from the presented
methods are accurate results. The derivations given in the
paper can be used for other situations as well.

2015 IEEE

The paper is organized as follows: In Section II, a short

review of fractional order systems is given and a closed loop
control system with a fractional order PI controller is
introduced. The exact methods using FSM and IFTM for the
computation of step and impulse responses of closed loop
control systems with fractional order PI controller are
introduced in Section III. In Section IV, examples are
provided to show the importance of the method presented.
Concluding remarks are given in Section V.

P( j )

(K p ( j )
(j )

using

[cos(
U( )

Re[G ( j )]

/ 2)

Re[G ( j )]( K p
sin

II.

A closed loop control system with a fractional order PI

controller is shown in Fig. 1 where

C ( s)

Kp

G ( s)

Re[G ( j )]( K p

Im[G( j )]( K p
Z( )

cos

Im[G ( j )]( K p
Q( )

sin

cos

cos

sin

Im[G ( j )]( K p

cos

(5)

sin

(6)

Ki )
cos

Ki )

(7)

Re[G ( j )]( K p

Ki )

Re[G ( j )]( K p

and

sin

(8)

Ki )

Thus, P ( j ) can be written as

P( j )

Ki
s

(1)

is a fractional order PI controller and

bm s m
an s n

V( )

j Im[G ( j )]

/ 2)] in (4), one obtains

j sin(

Im[G ( j )]( K p

CONTROL SYSTEMS WITH FRACTIONAL ORDER PI

CONTROLLER
Fractional order calculus is a generalization of ordinary
differentiation
by
non-integer
derivatives.
Many
mathematicians, like Liouville and Riemann, contributed to
the field of fractional calculus. There are different definitions
of fractional order operators such as Grnwald-Letnikov,
Riemann-Liouville and Caputo [10]. In recent years,
facilitated by todays computational facilities considerable
attention has been given to fractional order systems, including
fractional order control systems. Many studies have been done
on stability analysis, controller design, frequency response and
time response analysis of control systems [1-3]. It has been
shown that instead of classical controllers such as PI and PID
using fractional order controller namely fractional order PI
and PID controllers can provide advantages [11-15].

U ( ) jV ( )
(4)
Ki )G( j ) Z ( ) jQ( )

(K p ( j )

G( j )

(j )

Ki )G( j )

bm 1s m 1
an 1 s n 1

b0
a0

(2)

is the plant transfer function which is an integer order transfer

function.

[U ( ) Z ( ) V ( )Q( )] j[V ( ) Z ( ) U ( )Q( )]

Z ( )2 Q( )2

(9)

From this equation, the real part and imaginary part of P ( j )

are obtained as
Re[ P ( j )]

[U ( )Z ( ) V ( )Q( )]
Z ( ) 2 Q( ) 2

(10)

Im[ P( j )]

[V ( )Z ( ) U ( )Q( )]
Z ( )2 Q( ) 2

(11)

III. TIME RESPONSE OF CLOSED LOOP CONTROL SYSTEMS WITH

FRACTIONAL ORDER PI CONTROLLER
Fig. 1. A closed loop control system with fractional order PI
controller
The closed loop transfer function of the system can be written
as
P (s )

Y ( s)
R ( s)

C ( s )G ( s )
1 C (s )G (s )

(K p s
s

(K ps

K i )G ( s )
K i )G ( s)

replacing s by j , the following equation can be obtained

A. Fourier Series Method(FSS)

The Fourier series for the square wave of -1 to 1 with
frequency s 2 / T can be written as
r (t )

(3)

4
k

1
sin(k s t )
1(2) k

(12)

where T is the period of the square wave. If r (t ) passes

through the transfer function P( s) then the output, which is

the unit step response if T is sufficiently large, can be written

as

p (t )

(19)

Re[ P ( j )]cos( t ) d
0

y s (t )

1
Re P ( jk
1(2) k

(13)

) sin(k s t )

The proof of this can be done using convolution. The details

of the proof can be found in [12] where it has been shown that
the step response can be written as
4

ys (t )

k 1(2)

and
As T
of
P ( jk s )
lim s 0 Im P ( jk

1
Re P ( jk s ) sin(k s t )
k
1
Im[ P ( jk s )]cos(k s t )
k

1
Re P ( jk
1(2) k

Using (10) in (19), the following equations can be written

2 [U ( ) Z ( ) V ( )Q ( )]
cos( t ) d
[ Z ( )2 Q( ) 2 ]
0

p (t )

2 [V ( ) Z ( ) U ( )Q ( )]
sin( t ) d
[Z ( )2 Q( )2 ]
0

)Q(k
2
)
]
s
s

)]

sin(k s t )

(16)

which is the unit step response of the closed loop system of

Fig. 1. Similarly, the impulse response, which is the derivative
of the step response is given by
yi (t )

dys (t )
dt

4
s

s Re P ( jk

4
k 1(2)

Re P ( jk

Im[ P( jk

s ) cos( k s t )
s

)]sin(k

t)

(17)

) cos(k s t )

k 1(2)

For the system of Fig. 1 again substituting (10) into (17), one
can obtain the equation of the impulse response as
yi (t )
[U (k

4
s
k 1(2)

s )Z (k s ) V (k
[Z (k s ) 2 Q(k

)Q (k
2
)
]
s

)]

cos(k

t)

(18)

Thus the step and impulse responses of the system can be

obtained using (16) and (18).

B. Inverse Fourier Transform Method(IFTM)

The impulse response, p (t ) , corresponding to the transfer
1

(22)

Thus, p (t ) can be computed by numerical integration using

either (21) or (22).

(15)

) sin(k s t )

ys (t )
1 [U (k s ) Z (k s ) V (k
k
[Z (k s )2 Q(k
1(2)

(21)

Similarly, substituting (11) into (20), one can find

For the closed loop control system of Fig. 1 with fractional

order PI controller, substituting (10) into (15) gives

(20)

Im[ P( j )]sin( t ) d
0

(14)

p (t )

p (t )

0 the numerator of the imaginary part

is
multiplied
by
so
that
s
)
0
and
(14)
becomes
s

ys (t )

or

function P( s) of (3) is given by p (t ) L P ( s) where L

denotes the inverse Laplace transform. Assuming the impulse
response is that of a stable system so that limt p(t ) 0 then
the Fourier transform can be evaluated. It has been shown in
[12] that the impulse response, p (t ) , can be written as

IV.

EXAMPLES

A. Example 1
The aim of this example is to show the validity of the
method by considering the control system of Fig. 1 with
integer order transfer functions such as
C ( s) 1

2
and G ( s)
s

1
4s 1

(23)

The step responses of the system obtained by Matlab step

function and the FSM program are shown in Fig. 2 where it
can be seen that both results are same since the maximum
error between two plots was computed from Fig. 3 as
12 10 7 . Similarly, the impulse responses of the closed loop
system using Matlab impulse function and FSM are plotted in
Fig. 4 where it was estimated that the maximum error between
two plots are less than 6 10 3 as shown in Fig. 5. These
errors occur at initial time and then the error between two
plots becomes zero. Also, the initial time errors ( 12 10 7 and
6 10 3 ) are very small. Therefore, the presented method
gives exact step and impulse responses of the closed loop
system since the approach is based on using the frequency
response data of the system which can be computed exactly.
B. Example 2
Consider the control system of Fig. 1 with
C ( s) 1

1
and G ( s )
s

1
s (s 1)( s 2)

1
3s 2

2s

(24)

The closed loop transfer function is

P (s )

s
s3

3s 2

1
2 s1

(25)

For
1.5 , the closed loop transfer function P ( s) can be
written as

0.6
Matlab
FSM

0.5

4.5

s1.5 1
3s
2 s 2.5
3.5

(26)

s1.5 1

Using (16), the unit step response of the closed loop system is
computed as shown in Fig. 6. The step response of the system
1
using IFTM is P (s ) and from (22) we obtained the step
s
response given in Fig. 7. It can be seen that both results are the
same from the figure plot accuracy and the maximum error
between the two plots at any time point is estimated to be less
than 2.5 10 4 . The step responses of the closed loop system
for different values of
are shown in Fig. 8.

0.4
Output(impulse response)

P (s )

0.3
0.2
0.1
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3

1.5

15

20
Time(sec)

25

30

35

40

35

40

Fig. 4. Impulse responses

Matlab
FSM
1
1

x 10

-3

0
-1
-2

0.5

Error

Output(step response)

10

-3
-4
-5

10

15

20
Time(sec)

25

30

35

40
-6

Fig. 2. Step responses

2

x 10

-7

10

15

-7

20
Time(sec)

25

30

Fig. 5. Error between impulse responses

0
1.4

-2
1.2

-6
Output(step response)

Error

-4

-8
-10
-12

0.8

0.6

0.4

-14

10

15

20
Time(sec)

25

30

Fig. 3. Error between step responses

35

40

0.2

10

15

20
Time(sec)

25

30

35

40

Fig. 6. Step response of the closed loop system using FSM

Here, comparisons results with Oustaloup method and

Grnwald-Letnikov (GL) are given. Oustaloups fifth order
integer approximations for s 0.1 is
1.585s 5 68.37 s 4 403.3s 3 367.9 s 2 51.87 s 1
s 0.1
(30)
s 5 51.87 s 4 367.9 s3 403.3s 2 68.37 s 1.585
Using this approximation in (29), one can obtain the following
8 order closed loop transfer functions

1.4

1.2

Output(step response)

0.8

1.585s 6

0.6

Pous 5 ( s )

0.4

0.2

10

15

20
Time(sec)

25

30

35

70.37 s 5 507 s 4 1103.7 s 3

858.47 s 2 137.74 s 3.17

1.585s8 73.17 s 7 611.57 s 6 1716.5s 5

(31)

2065.9s 4 1628.2 s3 913.34s 2

138.74 s 3.17

40

Fig. 7. Step response of the closed loop system using IFTM

The exact step response of the system obtained from FSM and
the step responses of Pous 5 ( s) are shown in Fig 9. It can be
seen that the difference between two plots is very small. The
difference between the plots can be seen more clearly on the
small figure.

2
=0.8

1.8

1.6

=1

1.4

=1.4

1.4

=1.6

1.2

1.2
1
0.8
0.6
0.4

1
1.54

0.8

1.52
0.6
1.5
0.4

0.2
0

Oustaloup 5th order

FSM

=1.2

Output(step response)

Output(step response)

1.6

10

20

30
Time(sec)

40

50

1.48
1.46

0.2

60

1.44
0

Fig. 8. Step response of the closed loop system for different

values of

3
0

10

3.5
15

20
Time(sec)

4
25

30

4.5
35

40

Fig. 9. Step response of the system obtained from FSM and

the step response of Pous 5 ( s)
C. Example 3
Consider Fig. 1 with
C ( s) 1

2
and G ( s)
s1.1

1
3s 1

(27)

The open loop transfer function is

L( s)

C ( s )G ( s)

s 3.1

s1.1 2
3s 2.1 s1.1

(28)

and the closed loop transfer function is

P (s )

L( s )
1 L( s)

s 3.1

s1.1 2
3s 2.1 2s1.1 2

s (s 0.1 ) 2
3
0.1
s (s ) 3s 2 ( s 0.1 ) 2s( s 0.1 ) 2

(29)

One can compute the step response of (29) using GrnwaldLetnikov(GL) approximation method. We used the Matlab GL
program given in [2] and obtained Fig. 10. The accuracy of
step responses obtained from GL methods depends on the step
time t . From Fig. 10, it can be seen that the result obtained
from GL approaches to the result of FSM when the step time
decreased.

[2]
1.6
FSM
GL( t=0.2)

1.4

GL( t=0.05)

[3]

Output(step response)

1.2
1

[4]

0.8
0.6

[5]

0.4

[6]

0.2
0

[7]
0

10

15

20
Time(sec)

25

30

35

40

[8]

Fig. 10. Step responses obtained from GL method and FSM.

[9]

V. CONCLUSIONS
The paper presents a method for the computation of the
exact time responses of closed loop control system with
fractional order PI controllers using frequency response data
of the system. The method is based on the results previously
obtained by the authors. The equations, which depend on the
controller parameters and frequency response information, of
the unit step and unit impulse responses of a closed loop
control system with a fractional order PI controller are
derived. The results of the paper can provide an important tool
for controller design in fractional order control systems.

[10]
[11]
[12]

[13]

[14]

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This work is supported by the Scientific and Research
Council of Turkey(TB TAK) under Grant no. EEEAG115E388.
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