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Module 1: Transfer Functions and Frequency Responses

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Module 1: Transfer Functions and Frequency Responses

This article is contained in Scilab Control Engineering Basics study module, which is used as course material
for International Undergraduate Program in Electrical-Mechanical Manufacturing Engineering, Department of
Mechanical Engineering, Kasetsart University.

Module Key Study Points

How to create a transfer function in Scilab
Xcos CTR block usage
Frequency response concept
Scilab commands for plotting frequency responses
In general, the first step for control system analysis and design is to acquire a model that represents the actual
plant to be controlled. Then a feedback diagram is constructed with this plant model and a controller
described as transfer functions, either in continuous or discrete time domain. For analysis and design in
frequency domain such as the so-called classical method, loopshaping, or Quantitative Feedback Theory
(QFT), some form frequency response data is needed. Hence, in this module we show how to formulate a
transfer function in Scilab and plot its frequency response.

Transfer Function Formulation

To be concrete, we consider in Figure 1 a simple diagram of robot joint driven by DC motor through a gear
transmission with ratio r:1 [1].

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Figure 1 robot joint connected to DC motor via a gear transmission

Let

be the sum of motor and gear inertia. By simple calculation, it is easy to show that the

rotational motion in terms of

is described by

(1)

where

represents torque constant. We want to describe a model in transfer function form so that a block

diagram can be drawn. To develop the electrical side of DC motor, consider the model shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 a model of permanent magnet DC motor

By Kirschoffs voltage law, we have

(2)
where

is back emf constant. From now on we omit the

subscript in the armature inductance and

resistance. It is left to the reader to verify that, in Laplace domain, the joint dynamics in Figure 1 can be
described by

(3)
(4)

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This can be drawn as a block diagram in Figure 3.

Figure 3 block diagram of the robot joint dynamics in Figure 1

The transfer function from

to

can be derived by setting

, which gives

(5)

Similarly, the transfer function from

to

is found by setting

(6)

To simplify the equation further, we can assume that the electrical constant
mechanical constant

is much smaller than the

. So the transfer functions in (5) and (6) reduce to

(7)

(8)

respectively. These two equations correspond to second order differential equation in time domain

(9)
By omitting parameter subscripts, (9) can be rewritten as

(10)
with

represents effective damping,

control input, and

disturbance input. The reduced block diagram of (10) can be drawn as in Figure 4.

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Figure 4 reduced block diagram of robot joint dynamics

So, the transfer function for a robot joint driven by DC motor we will be using in our study modules is in the
form

(11)

Lets put some values to the parameters, say,

. Hence the resulting transfer function

becomes

(12)

Now we demonstrate how to construct a transfer function such as (12) in Scilab. One method begins by
creating the Laplace variable s
-->s=poly(0,'s')
s =
s

and then use it to form P as described by (12)

-->P = 1/(10*s^2+0.1*s)
P =
1
--------2
0.1s + 10s

So far so good. It already looks like (12). However, this data format still lacks some inside information
necessary for further processing such as frequency response plot. So one more step is needed to convert it to a
continuous-time linear transfer function, by using the syslin() command
-->P = syslin('c',P)
P =
1
--------2
0.1s + 10s

The interactive response shown in Scilab console does not look any different than before. But the first
argument c passed to syslin tells Scilab that this is a continuous-time system. Now P is ready to be used by
other commands such as bode, freqresp etc.

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Another method that eventually yields the same P is shown below.

-->num = 1;
-->den = poly([0 0.1 10],'s','c');
-->P = syslin('c',num,den)
P =
1
--------2
0.1s + 10s

In this method, the numerator and denominator of P are created first, as a number 1 for the former and a
polynomial of s for the latter. Note that the row vector passed to poly(), representing the polynomial
coefficients, starts with the lowest order of s.

Transfer Function Block in an Xcos Model

Xcos is a simulation engine that comes with Scilab. Here we assume that the reader has some familiarity with
basic functionality of Xcos to the level that she could create some simple diagram using blocks from standard
palettes.
The standard block for transfer function can be located in Continuous time systems palette, under the name
CLR. When a user clicks on this block, a parameter dialog window emerges. For this block, numerator and
denominator in terms of polynomial of s can be put into the input field directly. For our transfer function (12),
the data is typed in as shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5 A dialog window for setting transfer function parameters

In the next section, we will connect some input to this plant and measure its output by an oscilloscope.

Frequency Response
Figure 6 depicts frequency response concept in a nutshell. In words, for a Linear Time-Invariant (LTI) system
driven by a sinusoid input, the output is a sinusoid with same frequency, only its magnitude
might change. When the input frequency varies, this results in new values for

and

and phase

. This pair of data

through out a range of frequency, actually a vector of complex numbers, constitutes a frequency response for
an LTI system.

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Figure 6 An LTI system driven by sinusoid input

To experiment with this, build a model shown in Figure 7, or download sinio_compare.zcos, and run the
simulation. Note that the transfer function used is the DC motor model from the voltage input to shaft velocity
output; i.e., the integrator

is removed.

Figure 7 sinusoid input and output comparison

See the input and output comparison from the scope. Change the input frequency by clicking on and put in
new value. Do you see the change in amplitude and phase of the output?

Relationship between transfer function and frequency response

You may remember from linear systems course that, for a continuous-time transfer function described in
terms of Laplace variable s, frequency response can be achieved by letting

(13)
By this relationship, a frequency response of a transfer function can be plotted the hard way. Using (12) as
an example, we solve for

manually by substituting

, which gives

(14)

Now we can plot the magnitude and phase versus frequency by using the following set of commands

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f=linspace(0.01,1,1000); // frequency vector (Hz)

w=2*%pi*f; // convert to rad/s
Pmag=zeros(1,1000);Pph=zeros(1,1000);
for k=1:1000, // compute P(jw) at each frequency point
P=1/(-10*w(k)^2+0.1*%i*w(k));
[Pmag(k),Pph(k)]=polar(P);
end
Pph = (180/%pi)*Pph; // convert to degree
figure(1)
subplot(211),plot2d(f,Pmag); // magnitude plot
xlabel("Frequency (Hz)");
ylabel("Magnitude");
subplot(212),plot2d(f,Pph); // phase plot
xlabel("Frequency (Hz)");
ylabel("Phase (degree)")

that yields Figure 8. First a linear frequency vector is created in Hz and converted to radian/sec. Vectors for
keeping magnitude and phase information are initialized

Figure 8 a simple frequency response plot

Then, the frequency response of P is computed at each frequency point , converted to polar form, and put into
the magnitude and phase vectors. The phase vector is converted from radian to degree. Last, the magnitude
and phase are plotted in the same figure using subplot() command.
Some drawback of this plot is obvious. The frequency range is quite limited and the plots are concentrated
only on narrow low frequency region. This is the reason that a frequency response is plotted on a semi-

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logarithm scale and the magnitude is expressed in decibel, where

. Slightly adjust

the above Scilab code to yield a much nicer plot range as in Figure 9.

Figure 9 a frequency response plot that covers broader frequency range

f=logspace(-5,2,1000);
w=2*%pi*f; // convert to rad/s
Pmag=zeros(1,1000);Pph=zeros(1,1000);
for k=1:1000, // compute P(jw) at each frequency point
P=1/(-10*w(k)^2+0.1*%i*w(k));
[Pmag(k),Pph(k)]=polar(P);
end
Pmag = 20*log10(Pmag); // convert Pmag to dB
Pph = (180/%pi)*Pph; // convert Pph to degree
figure(2)
subplot(211),plot2d("ln",f,Pmag); // magnitude plot
xlabel("Frequency (Hz)");
ylabel("Magnitude");
subplot(212),plot2d("ln",f,Pph); // phase plot
xlabel("Frequency (Hz)");
ylabel("Phase (degree)");

This type of frequency response is known as Bode plot. An easier way to plot from a transfer function created
by syslin() is by the command bode().
-->s=poly(0,'s');
-->P = 1/(10*s^2+0.1*s);
-->P = syslin('c',P);
-->bode(P)

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This yields the plot in Figure 10. Type help bode to see options such as how to adjust frequency range.

Figure 10 frequency response using Scilab bode command

Keyword: the frequency range that a plant is responsive is called bandwidth. Strictly speaking, bandwidth
covers frequency region such that the gain is above

or

. When trying to identify bandwidth

from a Bode plot, we can roughly indicate the frequency point where the magnitude curve touches
For example, from Figure 10, the bandwidth is about

line.

Another type of frequency response useful for control design is called a Nyquist plot. Actually, it is the same
data expressed in different format. Recall that each point of frequency response is just a complex number.
When it is described in polar form, we get a Bode plot. A Nyquist plot, on the other hand, is the frequency
response described in rectangular form

. So it constitutes a graph in complex plane. A Nyquist plot is

easily produced with command nyquist, say,

-->nyquist(P)

yields the plot in Figure 11. We will discuss this type of data more in later modules.

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Figure 11 frequency response from Scilab nyquist command

For the last part of this study module, we discuss an application of using frequency response that may be
useful beyond control engineering field. A filter is an electronic circuit, either analog or digital, that can be
used to alter the frequency response of a system to suit some particular needs. The most common one is a low
pass filter (LPF) used to attenuate high frequency noise.
Lets make our plant more realistic. Suppose in our DC motor robot joint with transfer function described by
(12), the joint angle is measured by a potentiometer and the resulting voltage is fed to a 12-bit A/D input of a
microcontroller. The interface circuit are properly designed to use the full range of A/D; i.e., joint angle at 0
degree corresponds to A/D value 0, and at 360 degree, it reads as 4095. Adding this conversion factor in
series with output of (12) in effect raises the gain by 4095/360 or 11.375. The new plant is

(15)

The bandwidth of (15) is about 0.2 Hz, which you can verify by yourself from a Bode plot, or search it more
accurately from data as follows
-->s=poly(0, 's');
-->P=syslin('c',11.375/(10*s^2+0.1*s));
-->f=linspace(0.01,1,1000);
-->fres=repfreq(P,f); // compute frequency respons
-->ibw=find(abs(fres)<0.707); // find index of bandwidth frequency
-->fbw=f(ibw(1)) // locate BW frequency with index
fbw =
0.2022523

In this chunk of code, we use another Scilab frequency response function repfreq() , which returns a vector of
frequency response without plotting anything. Then use function find() to locate the vector index with gain
less than 0.707, and use that index to find the bandwidth frequency.

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Now, suppose that during operation, the potentiometer circuit that measures plant output is somehow
contaminated by some noise with higher frequency spectrum than the plant bandwidth. To make it simple,
suppose the noise is a sin wave of magnitude

, and its frequency is

. We want to get rid of this noise

using a simple passive LPF circuit as shown in Figure 12.

Figure 12 a passive LPF circuit

consisting of only a resistor and a capacitor. We want to design the LPF with cutoff frequency at the plant
bandwidth

. Consult some analog filter design cookbook to get that the cutoff frequency of this filter

can be selected from

(16)
Simple calculation shows that practical values of
frequency

rad/s or approximately

and

yields the cutoff

A transfer function for this LPF can be derived easily. It is left to the reader to verify that it equals

(17)

Substituting the chosen component values yields

(18)

Plot the frequency response to verify the cutoff frequency. Since we are now interested in only the magnitude
plot, it is convenient to use Scilab function gainplot(), which does as its name says
-->H=syslin('c',1/(1+0.8*s));
-->gainplot(H)

The plot result in Figure 13 shows that our LPF has cutoff frequency about

as desired.

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Figure 13 gain plot of LPF (18)

Exercise: Construct an Xcos diagram and simulate to verify that this LPF filter works. Use (15) as plant
transfer function and connect some command input to it, say, a narrow pulse. Then add a sinusoid noise signal
with magnitude

and frequency

to the plant output. Use CMSCOPE block that has two channels.

On the first channel, measure the output contaminated by the noise, and on the second channel, measure the
plant output after passing through the LPF. Do you see the noise attenuated? Try varying the noise magnitude
and frequency. What happens when the noise frequency lies within the plant (and LPF) bandwidth?

Summary
In this study module, we discuss transfer function and frequency response basics, concentrating on Scilab
commands and Xcos block usages. This serves as a good foundation for later development, such as feedback
control analysis and design that relies on block diagram manipulation and frequency domain. Bode plot is a
powerful tool used in classical control design since WWII. In the past, plotting manually on a sheet of paper
could be tedious. Nowadays, software such as MATLAB or Scilab can generate magnitude and phase plots
easily and accurately. Some basic knowledge taught in a undergrad control course is still necessary for sanity
check.

Reference
1. M.W.Spong, S. Hutchinson and M. Vidyasagar, Robot Modeling and Control. John Wiley & Sons. 2006.

Supplement
Exercise solution: LPF_exercise.zcos
module1.zip : all Scilab and Xcos files used in this module.

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