Computation for Real World Control Systems

Workshop: Half-day (4 hours)
Date: Sunday, October 25, 2026
Time: Afternoon; tentative agenda runs from 1:30 pm to 5:00 pm
Location: To be confirmed

About

Computation is an essential part of every real-world control system, yet the details of implementation are often left to individual contributors or handed off to turnkey vendors. This workshop provides practical insights, methods, and concrete examples across three major aspects of real-time control-system computation.

The first part presents the principal factors affecting the computational chains in a feedback system, including latency, jitter, noise, and the relationship between computing technology and feedback-loop constraints. The second part focuses on the often-neglected computational aspects of control-system measurements, from system-identification experiments to signal and noise characterization. The final part examines efficient programming methods and common controller components, including PID controllers, filters, biquad cascades, state-space structures, and precalculation.

Together, these topics will equip participants with practical tools that they can apply immediately when designing, measuring, identifying, and implementing digital control systems.

Intended Audience

The workshop is intended for academics, students, and industry practitioners who understand control theory and want to implement control algorithms in practice. It will be especially useful to participants working with digital feedback systems and high-speed mechatronic applications.

Prerequisites

Undergraduate-level knowledge of feedback systems, sampled-data systems, and programming, along with an interest in translating control theory into physical control systems.

Learning Outcomes

Participants will learn how to:

• Recognize the major computational chains in a real-time feedback system.
• Account for latency, jitter, noise, and sample-rate constraints in control implementation.
• Select and evaluate measurement and system-identification methods for practical control problems.
• Implement common controller structures efficiently in C or C++.
• Choose among PID, FIR, IIR, CIC, biquad, and state-space structures for real-time applications.

Schedule

Time	Duration	Topic
1:30 pm	60 minutes	A Tutorial on Real-Time Computing Issues for Control Systems
2:30 pm	60 minutes	Measurements for Control Systems: System Identification, Signal Characterization, and Noise Characterization
3:30 pm	30 minutes	Break
4:00 pm	60 minutes	PIDs, Filters, Biquad Cascades, Precalculation, and Other Feedback-Controller Implementation Methods

Organizer

Daniel Y. Abramovitch
System Architect, Liquid Phase Division, Agilent Technologies
Santa Clara, California, USA