Scope of Computer-Aided Control System Design (CACSD)

by Georg Grübel, 27 November 2006


Computer Aided Control Systems Design’ -with CACSD as acronym -, denotes the field of study concerned with algorithms, computers and software to be used as enabling technology in control engineering. PC-power together with CACSD technology makes model-based control theory and engineering hands-on executable.


The mission of CACSD is:

to conceive computerized ways and means to augment an engineer’s capability and efficiency in achieving performant control solutions in design processes ranging from mission- and systems level down to dynamics level with control law synthesis and tuning, control logic verification, and embedded controller implementation;

to explore how software tools, integrated tool chains and workflow environments as enabling technology can be developed in view of high tool performance, reliability, re-use, and structured user interaction;

to promote best application practices over the entire control engineering design and development process, and its implementation in an industrial environment and academic curricula.


CACSD’ music plays on different themes:


Computer Algorithms for Control Systems Design

... (large scale) structure preserving numerically stable analysis, synthesis, and optimization algorithms and software with automatic problem-data balancing and reliable exception handling; also: control computations by symbolic computing, and by ‘soft computing’, i.e., fuzzy logic, neural networks, evolutionary algorithms and genetic programming, ... ,


Computer Aligned Control Systems Design

... data-centered object-oriented tool environments and repositories that enable interactive configuration of task-specific tool chains, together with database support for version control and automatic documentation of design iterations and refinements; granular, object-oriented system dynamics and control model libraries for re-use to save vested interests in modelling cost, ... ;


Computer Assisted Control Systems Design

... dedicated (‘intelligent’) graphical user interfaces, semantic-web based information sharing and design data mining to support net-collaborative work, scientific visualization together with virtual reality animation in supporting the paradigm “vision to think”; web-based teachware both for students and professionals, ... ;


Computer Automated Control Systems Design

... automatic generation of low-level execution code for different simulation platforms and simulation purposes (e.g., rapid prototyping on target processors, hardware-in-the-loop design validation, model-based tuning) defined by high-level (hybrid-) system object diagrams and flow charts; high-level interactive design steering and compromising on design demands to achieve at automated control tuning via mixed-model multi-objectives pareto-optimization search, ... ;


Computer Automation in Control-Software Development

... automatic generation of formally verified real-time control software from high-level hybrid control specifications and semantically rich models;


Computer Autonomous Control Software Dispatch

... embedded s/w platforms for multi-agent, multi-modal control laws, tools and techniques for embedded control law synthesis, realtime mission- and system state diagnosis, and reconfiguration of distributed hierarchical control software, mission-level model-predictive control (MPC), applied to: autonomous robotic systems, unmanned vehicles, electric power systems, etc. ... .


These various interpretations of ‘CACSD’ denote the evolution of ‘Computer Aided Control Systems Design’ over time as a computational discipline. Main activities changed from computation algorithms and software tools to: data abstraction and modular tool chains and -repositories; interactive graphics and visualization; high level specification of automated modelling and computation processes; model-based software- and target code generation; embedded real-time (MPC) computations and embedded software adaptation to mission changes.