Automation Category - Page 5 of 6

What is Bang-bang Control?

Old thermostats used bang-bang control. — Thermostats like this old Honeywell model offered bang-bang control. Copyright M Kenney 2021

Mechanical systems offer many different control options. One of these is the oddly-named bang-bang control. This short blog post answers some common questions about this control theory.

What is bang-bang control theory?

Bang-bang control is a kind of feedback controller, meaning it has a type of cause-and-effect closed loop. Bang bang controllers switch quickly between two different states, for example, completely on or completely off.

Bang-bang control symbol. — The symbol for bang-bang control. ^{Sourced from Wikipedia, by Mik81 Public Domain}

Examples of bang bang control

You’ve probably used bang bang control systems all your life without realizing it. This kind of control offers an “on” state and an “off” state with no variable between these. Thermostats–at least older versions–typically use bang bang control.

PLC, HMI & SCADA: How They Work Together

If you work in any sort of manufacturing setting, you’ve probably heard the terms PLC, HMI & SCADA. But do you know what they all mean? More importantly, do you know what they do, when to use them, and how they work together within industrial systems?

If you answered “no” to any part of those questions, don’t worry. This tutorial will take you through a quick rundown of the what, where, when and how of these devices and systems.

A Quick Intro to PLC, HMI & SCADA

Before we get into how they interact, lets talk about the individual systems/devices.

Servo Drive Features You Should Know About

Close-up of the Vectrive ACDA-33 Servo Drive from Reliance Electric. — The Reliance Electric Vectrive ACDA-33 Servo Drive

The servo drive of today is not the same as the basic power amplifier of yesterday. These complex equipment devices have dozens of available features that expand and improve their original motion control abilities. We don’t want you to miss out on any of these great features from lack of knowledge, so we’ve created a short blog post to introduce you to the top three features you should know about.

Auxiliary Feedback/Dual Loop Control

One important servo drive feature to understand is the auxiliary feedback/dual loop control option.

Servo drives read motor feedback, but many are also capable of reading an additional feedback source. This is called an auxiliary feedback. Typically, an auxiliary feedback is attached to the moving load, for example, connections in the drivetrain like gearboxes, couplings, or ball screws.