How to Determine ADC/DAC Performance for Digital Control Systems (Download)
Digital feedback control is widely applied to manage a variety of devices, collectively referred to as devices under control (DUC), such as motors, temperature systems, servo actuators, system pressure regulators, and flow-rate controllers. The goal in digital feedback control design is to determine the performance criteria needed for a sensor’s analog-to-digital converter (ADC) and the controller’s digital-to-analog converter (DAC).
In classical analog controllers, signals are proportional voltages operated on by op-amp-based circuitry that implements the core control-loop functions, namely, Gain/Multiply, Sum/Addition, Difference/Subtraction, Derivative, and Integral. By comparison, digital controllers perform control computations on digital data streams, with the control math implemented in digital logic hardware or in code running on microcontrollers (MCUs) or programmable logic controllers (PLCs).