Choosing a Control Design Approach

Control System Toolbox™ provides several approaches to tuning control systems. Use the following table to determine which approach best supports what you want to do.

	PID Tuning	Classical Control Design	Multiloop, Multiobjective Tuning
Architecture	PID loops with unit feedback (1-DOF and 2-DOF)	Control systems having SISO controllers in common single-loop or multiloop configurations (see Feedback Control Architectures)	Any architecture, including any number of SISO or MIMO feedback loops
Control Design Approach	Automatically tune PID gains to balance performance and robustness	Graphically tune poles and zeros on design plots, such as Bode, root locus, and Nichols Automatically tune compensators using response optimization (Simulink® Design Optimization™), LQG synthesis, or IMC tuning	Automatically tune controller parameters to meet design requirements you specify, such as setpoint tracking, stability margins, disturbance rejection, and loop shaping (see Tuning Goals)
Analysis of Control System Performance	Time and frequency responses for reference tracking and disturbance rejection	Any combination of system responses	Any combination of system responses
Interface	Graphical tuning using PID Tuner (see Designing PID Controllers with PID Tuner) Programmatic tuning using pidtune (see PID Controller Design at the Command Line)	Graphical tuning using Control System Designer	Graphical tuning using Control System Tuner Programmatic tuning using systune (see Programmatic Tuning)

Related Topics

• PID Controller Tuning
• Classical Control Design
• Tuning with Control System Tuner
• Programmatic Tuning