Stability and Frequency Response
Laboratory Experiment No. 6
Performance Objective
To use MATLAB to analyze the frequency and stability of a system given it’s transfer function.
Materials and Equipment
MATLAB software with Tool Box
Personal Computer
Procedure
What Is Frequency Response?
Frequency response plots show the complex values of a transfer function as a function of frequency.
In the case of linear dynamic systems, the transfer function G is essentially an operator that takes the
input u of a linear system to the output y:
For a continuous-time system, the transfer function relates the Laplace transforms of the input U(s) and
output Y(s):
In this case, the frequency function G(iw) is the transfer function evaluated on the imaginary axis s=iw.
For a discrete-time system sampled with a time interval T, the transfer function relates the Z-transforms
of the input U(z) and output Y(z):
In this case, the frequency function G(eiwT) is the transfer function G(z) evaluated on the unit circle. The
argument of the frequency function G(eiwT) is scaled by the sampling interval T to make the frequency
function periodic with the sampling frequency .
How Frequency Response Helps to Validate Models
You can plot the frequency response of a model to gain insight into the characteristics of linear model
dynamics, including the frequency of the peak response and stability margins. Frequency-response plots
are available for all linear parametric models and spectral analysis (nonparametric) models.
What Does a Frequency-Response Plot Show?
System Identification Tool GUI supports the following types of frequency-response plots for linear
parametric models, linear state-space models, and nonparametric frequency-response models:
Bode plot of the model response. A Bode plot consists of two plots. The top plot shows the
magnitude by which the transfer function G magnifies the amplitude of the sinusoidal input.
The bottom plot shows the phase by which the transfer function shifts the input. The
input to the system is a sinusoid, and the output is also a sinusoid with the same frequency.
Plot of the disturbance model, called noise spectrum. This plot is the same as a Bode plot of the
model response, but it shows the output power spectrum of the noise model instead.
(Only in the MATLAB® Command Window)
Nyquist plot. Plots the imaginary versus the real part of the transfer function.
Exercise
Function: Use tf function create transfer function of following form:
Kindly plot the frequency response of the transfer function given above:
Stability Analysis Based on Frequency Response
• Stability analysis can also be performed using a Nyquist plot
• From Nyquist plot – determine if system is stable and also the degree of stability of a system
• Using the information to determine how stability may be improved
• Stability is determined based on the Nyquist Stability Criterion
Example: Matlab code to draw a Nyquist Plot
Consider the system 1
H ( s )=
s 2 +0 . 8 s+1
Kindly draw the output of the above command
Conclusion
In retrospect, this experiment depicted how stability and frequency response of a system are
influenced by the input and output of a transfer function using bode and nyquist command in MATLAB.
Both commands converted the data inputted to a graphical representation that gives a different and
better perspective of how frequency response and stability describes a specific transfer function
respectively.
