Control Systems Engineering

ECNG - 4010

Lecture-9
The Stability of Linear Control Systems

Goitom Tadesse
Defence University College of Engineering
Dec. 2023
 Objective

At the end of this lecture you are expected to

understand and employ the following:
• The Concept of Stability
• The Routh Hurwith Stability Criterion
• Relative Stability Analysis

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 Stability
• It is usually not desirable that a small change in the input,
initial condition, or parameters of the system produces a
very large change in the response of the system.
• If the response increases indefinitely with time the system
is said to be unstable.
• Stability is an important property that a system is required
to possess.
• A linear, time-invariant system is stable if the natural
response approaches zero as time approaches infinity.
• A linear, time-invariant system is unstable if the natural
response grows without bound as time approaches infinity.
• A linear, time-invariant system is marginally stable if the
natural response neither decays nor grows but remains
constant or oscillates as time approaches infinity. 3
 Stability...

Marginally
Stable

Stable

Unstable

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 Stability...
The most important problem in linear control systems
concerns stability.
Let us focus on the natural response definitions of stability
Stable systems have closed-loop transfer functions with
poles only on the left half-plane.
If the closed-loop system poles are on the right half of the s-
plane and hence have a positive real part, the system is
unstable.
A. Hurwitz and E.J. Routh have independently established
the conditions for stability of a system without actually
finding out the roots.
The criteria is known as Routh-Hurwitz criterion for
stability. 5
 Routh-Hurwitz Stability Criterion
• It is a method for determining continuous system
stability.
• The Routh-Hurwitz criterion states that “the number
of roots of the characteristic equation with positive
real parts is equal to the number of changes in sign of
the first column of the Routh array”.
• This method yields stability information without the
need to solve for the closed-loop system poles.
• Using this method, we can tell how many closed-loop
system poles are in the left half-plane, in the right
half-plane, and on the jω-axis. (Notice that we say
how many, not where.)
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 Stability...
Most linear closed-loop systems have closed-loop
transfer functions of the form
N ( s ) C ( s ) bm s m  bm 1s m 1  ...  b1s  b0
 
D ( s ) R ( s ) an s n  an 1s n 1  ...  a1s  a0

• where the a’s and b’s are constants and m<n.

• The method requires two steps:
• Generate a data table called a Routh table.
• Interpret the Routh table to tell how many closed-loop
system poles are in the LHP, the RHP, and on the jω -
axis.

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 Stability...
• The characteristic equation of the nth order continuous
system can be write as:
an s n  an 1s n 1  ...  a1s  a0  0
• The stability criterion is applied using a Routh table
which is defined as; s n a a a ...
n n2 n4

s n 1 an 1 an 3 an 5 ...
. b1 b2 b3 ...
. c1 c2 c3 ...
. . . . ...
Where an , an 1 ,..., a0 are coefficients of the characteristic equation.
an 1an  2  an an 3 a a a a
b1  , b2  n 1 n  4 n n 5
an 1 an 1
b1an 3  an 1b2 ba a b
c1  , c2  1 n 5 n 1 3
b1 b1 8
 Stability...
Generating a Basic Routh Table
• First label the rows with powers of s from highest
power of s down to lowest power of s in a vertical
column.
• Next form the first row of the Routh table, using the
coefficients of the denominator of the closed-loop
transfer function (characteristic equation).
• Start with the coefficient of the highest power and
skip every other power of s.
• Now form the second row with the coefficients of the
denominator skipped in the previous step.

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 Stability...

• The table is continued horizontally and vertically until

zeros are obtained.
• If the closed-loop transfer function has all poles in the
left half of the s-plane, the system is stable.
• Thus, a system is stable if there are no sign changes in
the first column of the Routh table.
• The Routh-Hurwitz criterion declares that the number
of roots of the polynomial that are lies in the right
half-plane is equal to the number of sign changes in
the first column.
• Hence the system is unstable if the poles lies on the
right hand side of the s-plane. 10
 Stability...
Example

• Only the first 2 rows of the array are obtained from the
characteristic eq. the remaining are calculated as follows;

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 Stability...
Second-Order System
The characteristic polynomial of a second order system is
q ( s )  a2 s 2  a1s  a0
The Routh array is written as
s 2 a2 a0
s1 a1 0
s 0 b1 0
Where
a1a0  (0)a2 1 a2 a0
b1    a0
a1 a1 a1 0

The requirement for a stable second order system is simply that

all the coefficient be positive or all the coefficient s be negative.
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 Stability...
Third-Order System
The characteristic polynomial of a third order system is:
q ( s )  a3 s 3  a2 s 2  a1s  a0
The Routh array is
s 3 a3 a1
s 2 a2 a0
s1 b1 0
a2 a1  a0 a3 ba
s 0 c1 0 Where b1  , and c1  1 0  a0
a2 b1
The requirement for a stable third order system is that the
coefficients be positive and
The condition when results in a marginally stability
case (recognized as Case-3 because there is a zero in the first
column) and one pair of roots lies on the imaginary axis in the s-
plane.
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 Stability...
Example-1:
Find the stability of the continues system having the
characteristic equation of
s 3  4 s 2  12 s  8  0
Solution: The Routh table of the given system is computed and
shown is the table below;
s 3 1 12 0
s2 4 8 0
s1 10 0
s0 8
Since there is no changes of the sign in the first column of the
Routh table, it means that all the roots of the characteristic
equation have negative real parts and hence this system is stable.
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 Stability...
Example-2:
Find the stability of the continues system having the characteristic
polynomial of a third order system is:
s 3  s 2  2s  24  0
Solution: The Routh array is
s3 1 2
s2 1 24
s1 22 0
s 0 24 0
• Because TWO changes in sign appear in the first column, we
find that two roots of the characteristic equation lie in the right
hand side of the s-plane.
• Hence the system is unstable.
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 Stability...
Example-3:
Find the stability of the system shown below using
Routh criterion.

The close loop transfer function is

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 Stability...
Solution:
The Routh table of the system is

Because TWO changes in sign appear in the first column,

we find that two roots of the characteristic equation lie
in the right hand side of the s-plane.
Hence the system is unstable. 17
 Stability...
Example-4
Find the stability of the system shown below using Routh criterion.
2 s 4  s 3  3s 2  5s  10  0
Solution: The Routh table of the system is
s4 2 3 10
s3 1 5 0
s 2 7 10 0
s1 6.43 0 0
s 0 10 0 0
• System is unstable because there are two sign changes in the first
column of the Routh’s table.
• Hence the equation has two roots on the right half of the s-plane.
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 Stability...
Example-5
Find the stability of the system shown below using Routh criterion.
s3  2s 2  s  2  0
Solution: The Routh table of the system is
s3 1 1
s2 2 2
s1 0 
s0 2
• If the sign of the coefficient above the zero (є) is the same as that
below it, it indicates that there are a pair of imaginary roots.
• Actually, it has two roots at 𝑠 = ± 𝑗.
• System is marginally stable because there is 0 in the first column
of the Routh’s table. 19
 Relative Stability Analysis
By applying Routh-Hurwitz criteria, we can determine
whether a system is stable or not.
This is known as absolute stability.
If there are no roots in the RHS of s-plane, we conclude
that the system is stable.
But imagine a system to have some roots with a very
small negative real part i.e., the roots are very near to
the 𝑗𝜔-axis.
𝑗𝜔-axis is the border for stable and unstable regions.
Due to some environment conditions, let us assume that
the parameter values have changed, which cause the
roots nearest to the 𝑗𝜔 -axis to cross the threshold and
enter unstable region. 20
 Relative Stability …
The system obviously becomes unstable.
Hence it is necessary that the system's dominant poles
(poles nearest to the 𝑗𝜔 -axis) are reasonably away
from the 𝑗𝜔 -axis.
Systems with more negative real parts of the dominant
poles are relatively more stable than systems with less
negative real parts of the dominants poles.
Hence the distance from the 𝑗𝜔 -axis of the dominant
poles is a measure of the relative stability of a system.
We are more concerned with the relative stability of a
system rather than its absolute stability.
Routh-Hurwitz criterion gives us absolute stability of
the system only. 21
 Relative Stability …
However we can modify the procedure to determine how far
the dominant pole is from the 𝑗𝜔 -axis by shifting the 𝑗𝜔 -
axis to the left by a small amount.
Apply Routh Hurwitz criterion to find out if any roots lie on
the right side of this shifted axis.
By trial and error the negative real part of the dominant pole
can be located.
Let the dominant poles of the system be given by
n  n  2  1
The response due to these poles is of the form
c(t )  Ae nt sin(n 1   2 t   )
the time constant of the exponentially T  1
decaying term is given by,  n 22
 Relative Stability …
Thus we see that the time constant is inversely
proportional to the real part of the pole and hence
the setting time ts, which is approximately equal to 4T is
also inversely proportional to the real part of the
dominant pole.
For reasonably small value of the settling time, the real
part of the dominant pole must be at a suitable
distance away from the 𝑗𝜔 -axis.
For the largest time constant of the system (real part of
the dominant pole) to be greater than 𝜏 seconds, the
real part of the dominant root must be 𝜎 = 1/𝜏 units
to the left of 𝑗𝜔 -axis.
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 Relative Stability …

Thus shifting the 𝑗𝜔 -axis by 𝜎 to the left and applying

Routh-Hurwitz criterion, we can ascertain whether the
largest time constant is indeed greater than 𝜏.
To do this let s = z - 𝜎 in the characteristic equation and
we get an equation in z.
Applying Routh criterion to z-plane polynomial, we can
find if any roots are lying in the right half of z-plane.
If there are no right half of z-plane roots, it means that
the system has no roots to the right of s = −𝜎 line and
therefore the time constant of the dominant pole is
greater than 𝜏 sec.
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 Relative Stability …
Example 6
Determine whether the largest time constant of the system
with characteristic equation given below is greater than 1
sec.
D( s )  s  6 s  14 s  16 s  8
4 3 2

Solution:
For the largest time constant, the dominant root must be
1
away from j𝜔-axis by an amount equal to 𝜎 = =1
1.0
Shifting the j𝜔-axis by 1.0 to the left by taking, 𝑠 = 𝑧 − 1
and substituting in D(s), we have
D1 ( s )  ( z  1) 4  6( z  1)3  14( z  1) 2  16( z  1)  8
 z 4  2z3  2z 2  2z  1
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 Relative Stability …

Routh table :

Since we have a row of zeros, the polynomial in z has roots

on the imaginary axis.
It means that the dominant roots in the s-plane is having a
real part equal to - 1.
Therefore the largest time constant of the given system is
equal to 1 sec.

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 Homework
1. Find the stability of the system shown below using Routh
criterion.
s  8s  19 s  12  0
3 2

2. Consider the following characteristic equation:

s 3  6 s 2  11s  K  0
• Determine the range of K for stability using Routh criterion.

3. Consider the following characteristic equation:

s 4  Ks 3  5s 2  4s  4  0
• Determine the range of K for stability using Routh criterion.

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