A software tool for performance evaluation of digital control algorithms on finite worldlength processors

A large number of algorithms exist for digital control which work well with high precision floating point computation. When implemented in finite wordlength processors without inherent floating point capability, these control algorithms often fail to demonstrate their effectiveness. The software described here has been developed to test the performance of digital controllers under such finite wordlength situations. It is also shown, how, with a suitable restructuring of the conventional discrete-time shift operator models, considerably improved robustness to such situations can be achieved with marginally added computations. Key words: Controller implementation, fixed-point arithmetic, finite wordlength control.