A PID controller is a three-term controller that has proportional, integral and derivative control coefficients.

It is
named after its three correcting terms and its sum produce a control action for manipulating variable. It
measures the output of a process and controls the input by maintaining the output at a desired value (also called
as set point).The proportional term applies appropriate proportional changes for error (which is the difference
between the set point and process variable) to the control output. The integral term examines the process
variable over time and offset of set point and then corrects the output if necessary. Derivative control monitors
the rate of change of process variable and accordingly changes the output when there are unusual changes. Each
parameter of three control functions is adjusted to get the desired performance from the process.

The conventional PID controller equation is given as follows:

1 t de(t)
u(t) = Kp [ e(t) ]+Ki[ ∫ e(τ)dτ
Ti 0
] + Kd[
dt
]

where Kp is the proportional gain, Ki is the integral gain, Ki is the derivative gain, Ti is integral time constant,
e is the error signal and u is the control output.

At present, the PI controller is most widely adopted in industrial application due to its simple structure, easy to
design and low cost. For a PI controller and when the sample time is T , this equation can be modified into a
difference equation:

T
u(k) = Kp [ e(k)]+Ki[ ∑ki=0 e(i)]
Ti

Control output u(k-1) can be expressed in form:

T
u(k-1) = Kp [ e(k-1)]+ Ki[ ∑k−1
i=0 e(i) ]
Ti

Their difference between u(k) and u(k-1) is then:

T T
u(k) - u(k-1) = Kp [ e(k)+ ∑ki=0 e(i) ] - Ki [ e(k-1) + ∑k−1
i=0 e(i) ]
Ti Ti
T
u(k) - u(k-1) = Kp [e(k)] – Ki [e(k-1) + e(k)]
Ti
T
u(k) = u(k-1) + Kp [e(k)] – Ki [e(k-1) + e(k)]
Ti