Embedded Digital Control with Microcontrollers

4Fundamentals of Digital Control

Digital control systems to be considered in the following chapters depend on digital signal representation. Therefore, this chapter starts with an introduction to digital signals both from theoretical and practical perspectives. Next, we will evaluate digital systems and their properties. Here, we will focus on linear and time-invariant (LTI) systems which form the fundamental structure in the following chapters. We will also explore -transform and how it can be used in analyzing digital systems. We will follow a more practical approach throughout the chapter since our aim is applying the concepts introduced here to practical digital control problems. Therefore, we will provide Python and C codes whenever possible. We will direct the reader to references for in depth theoretical evaluation of digital control topics introduced here. As the end of chapter applications, we will first provide methods on handling offline signals on the STM32 microcontroller. Then, we will take the DC motor as the system and apply basic operations on it.

4.1 Digital Signals

We should acquire measurements from either a sensor or reference input to control a system. Here, we will get data by samples. We have seen how this can be done by the analog-to-digital converter (ADC) module of the STM32 microcontroller in Chapter 3. Although we will acquire data by samples, we ...