TABLE OF CONTENTS A SISO plant has exactly one input signal and one output signal, whereas a MIMO plant has multiple inputs, multiple outputs, or both. Although the design methods of Chapters 2 (PID control) and 4 (root locus and Bode design) are directly applicable only to SISO plants, the state-space design techniques described in Chapters 5 (pole placement) and 6 (optimal control) work with both SISO and MIMO plants.
In cases where each MIMO plant input primarily affects only one output, it could make sense to think of the plant as a collection of SISO plants. When this assumption is reasonable, each of the SISO plants requires a separate controller design. This approach is valid when the cross-coupling between the SISO systems is small. However, when cross-coupling is significant, MIMO design techniques will generally produce superior control system performance.
In this chapter, I present two example MIMO plants and develop controllers for them with the pole placement and optimal design techniques described in Chapters 5 and 6. With these state-space design methods, the steps for designing the controller gains are essentially identical to those used when working with SISO systems.
In this chapter, I do not introduce any new control system design concepts. Instead, the intent is to demonstrate the application of techniques developed in earlier chapters to the design of control systems for MIMO plants. In designing controllers for these typically complex systems, it is more important than ever that the linear plant model faithfully represent the actual...
