Specify Control System Designer Preferences

You can specify preferences for the current Control System Designer session. These preferences override the corresponding toolbox preferences. To open the preferences dialog box, in Control System Designer, click Preferences.

To update the app preferences and close the dialog box, click OK. To update the app preferences without closing the dialog box, click Apply.

Note

The updated preferences apply to new plots only; existing plots remain unchanged.

Units Tab

In the drop-down lists, specify units for the following:

• Frequency axes in analysis and graphical editor plots. In the Scale drop-down list, specify whether to plot the frequency on a linear scale or log scale.

• Magnitude axes of Bode and Nichols plots. If you select absolute, in the Scale drop-down list, specify whether to plot the magnitude on a linear scale or log scale.

• Phase axes of Bode and Nichols plots.

Time Delays Tab

To approximate delays for plots or tuning methods that do not support time delays, specify the Padé order using one of the following:

• Pade order — Specific Padé order.

• Bandwidth of accuracy — Highest frequency in radians per second at which the approximated response matches the exact response. The app computes and displays the corresponding Padé order.

For more information, see Designing Compensators for Plants with Time Delays (Simulink Control Design).

Style Tab

Specify the default plot style options.

• Show grids by default — Display grid lines on plots.

• Titles, Axis Labels, and Tick Labels — Specify font size and format.

• Axes foreground — Set the color for axes, tick labels, and grid lines. Specify a three-element row vector of RGB values from 0 to 1. To choose the axes foreground color, click Select.

Options Tab

On the Options tab, specify options for compensator format and plotting.

Under Compensator FormatSelect one of the following compensator parameterizations:

• Time constant — Parameterize compensator transfer functions in the form

  $$K\times \frac{\left(1+T_{z_1}s\right)\left(1+T_{z_2}s\right)}{\left(1+T_{p_1}s\right)\left(1+T_{p_2}s\right)}\cdots$$

  where

  • K is the compensator DC gain.

  • T_z1, T_z2, ... are the zero time constants.

  • T_p1, T_p2, ... are the pole time constants.

• Natural frequency — Parameterize compensator transfer functions in the form

  $$K\times \frac{\left(1+s/{\omega }_{z_1}\right)\left(1+s/{\omega }_{z_2}\right)}{\left(1+s/{\omega }_{p_1}\right)\left(1+s/{\omega }_{p_2}\right)}\cdots$$

  where

  • K is the compensator DC gain.

  • ω_z1, ω_z2, ... are the zero natural frequencies.

  • ω_p1, ω_p2, ... are the pole natural frequencies.

• Zero/pole/gain — Parameterize compensator transfer functions in the form

  $$K\times \frac{\left(s+z_1\right)\left(s+z_2\right)}{\left(s+p_1\right)\left(s+p_2\right)}$$

  where

  • K is the overall compensator gain.

  • z₁, z₂, ... are the zeros.

  • p₁, p₂, ... are the poles.

On Bode plots, Control System Designer displays the poles and zeros of the plant and sensor as blue x's and o's, respectively. To remove these poles and zeros from Bode plots, clear Show plant/sensor poles and zeros parameter. The compensator poles and zeros still appear as red x's and o's.

Select the Update plots in real-time parameter to adjust the display for all open plots when you adjust a compensator pole or zero, for example by dragging the pole or zero in the Bode Editor. If you clear this parameter, the other plots do not update until you place the pole or zero in a new location.

Line Colors Tab

Specify plot line colors as three-element row vectors of RGB values from 0 to 1. To choose a color for a given line, click Select.