Automatic controller design and optimisation using Simulink

This paper outlines a method for the automatic creation of control systems and a search to find the optimal controller through the optimisation of candidate solutions. A software system to carry out Parallel and Distributed Evolutionary Computations (PDEC) is introduced. This system is designed to interface with Simulink which is used as the simulation environment. It has the potential to create a control system made up of any number of blocks from a Simulink library including specialised blocks. The paper then describes how the software carries out the search and low this can be run in parallel. It also introduces current work involving real-time search with hardware-in-the-loop. Finally a speed controller for an Electric Thrust Reversal Actuation System is designed using the system and tested showing the results.