Patent GB-810042-A (GB)
Title: Feedback control systems
IPC: G01M7/02
Filed: 1955-12-22
Abstract: 810,042. Automatic control systems; reciprocating motors and generators. TEXTRON Inc., [formerly TEXTRON AMERICAN Inc.]. Dec. 22, 1955 [Dec. 27, 1954], No. 36773/55. Classes 35 and 38 (4). In a retro-active control system wherein a characteristic 010, Fig. 1, of the controlled power element 13 subject to external influences U10 is compared with a reference value E11, the difference signal E12 is multiplied in a unit 12 by a variable feedback signal #10, which may be mechanical displacement produced by a conversion element 16, to effect the desired control with zero static error and maintain the gain of the loop constant. A unit 15 provides for adjustment of the controlled quantity. The application of the system to control the speed of a motor driving a tachometer generator is described with reference to Fig. 2 (not shown) and in this arrangement the multiplication is effected by driving the wiper of a potentiometer in the output circuit of the comparator. In a modification, described with reference to Fig. 3 (not shown), the motor is fed from a separate source and includes in its power feed a potentiometer the wiper of which is ganged to the multiplying potentiometer. The system of the invention is particularly applicable to the control of a vibration testing table 25, Figs. 4 and 5, where, due to resonance, the transfer functions of components of the loop are subject to wide fluctuations. The table 25 is driven by a moving-coil type motor, the field windings 22 of which are supplied with D.C. from a source 23 and the moving coil 27 is supplied with A.C. from an alternator 30 having a variable speed drive 31, through a tapped auto-transformer 32. The table movement is sensed by a coil 35 in the field of a magnet 36 and may be applied through an integrating or differentiating amplifier to provide respectively a displacement or acceleration controlling signal E500. The unit 14.2 comprises the sensing transducer, amplifiers and switch. External adjustment is provided by a potentiometer 15.1 as in previous embodiments, and the signal E501 after amplification and rectification in units 40, 41, is applied to difference network 11 with reference voltage E504 and produces a difference signal E505. Multiplication is effected by a potentiometer 12.1, the wiper of which is driven by a motor 48 which drives also a tapping wiper on autotransformer 32. Additional stability is provided by a displacement servomotor circuit 16.2 in which the output of a tachometer generator 52 driven also by the motor 48 is added to a voltage E511, derived from a source E512 by multiplication in a potentiometer ganged to the main loop multiplication potentiometer. The tachometer output signal E510 is proportional to the rate of change of tachometer position. The difference between this sum E513 and a filtered main loop signal E507 is applied through an amplifier 47 to drive the motor 48. The practical layout is described with reference to Fig. 6 (not shown), and an assembly including the motor 48 driving the auto-transformer and potentiometer wipers through a gearbox designed to have the minimum of back-lash is described with reference to Figs. 7-9 (not shown). The Specification includes a mathematical treatment of the circuit, and the time delays necessary in the amplifiers to ensure stability are also referred to. A loop gain of unity is stated to be optimum.