Potential Benefits of a CAD Package for Designing Multivariable Control Systems

Abstract

An open-ended CAD package, MVPACK, has been developed and implemented on a PDP-11/45 minicomputer at the Chalk River Nuclear Laboratories. The package is fully interactive, and includes a comprehensive state-of-the-art mathematical library to support development of complex multi-variable control algorithms.

Coded in RATFOR, MVPACK operates with a flexible data structure which makes efficient use of minicomputer resources and provides a standard framework for program generation. The existence of a help mechanism enhances the simplicity of package utilization.

The capability of the package as a tool for designing control systems is illustrated with the design of a regulating system for an evaporator.