A simple Fourier analysis technique for measuring the dynamic response of manual control systems.
From a practical standpoint most dynamic response analysis techniques are complicated, expensive, and time consuming to mechanize and operate. Adaptive parameter tracking techniques partially overcome these faults, but they have prescribed forms which is an undesirable restriction for basic research. To overcome these drawbacks, an on-line Fourier analysis technique has been developed which deals only with the input and error signals in a manual feedback control system. Several sine waves are used for the input, and the on-line data measurement includes the error variance and a simple means for obtaining the sine and cosine transforms of the error signal at each of the input frequencies. From this relatively small amount of data, we show simple ways to compute the open- and closed-loop dynamic response at input frequencies and the relative amount of linearly correlated power in the error signal.