Make a PI controller on an 8-bit micro

Abstract

"This article shows you how to implement a classical PI (proportional-integral) controller on a simple 8-bit microcontroller. To implement the PI controller, we developed specific libraries that make it possible for the microcontroller to perform arithmetic operations with 16- and 32-bit precision. Such resolution is necessary to reduce the steady-state error of the system being controlled. One advantage of this configuration is that it can be programmed into microcontrollers with less than 128 bytes of RAM and 4KB of ROM on chip. This design has been used to control a direct current (DC) gear motor but can be used to control other kind of actuators as well. Experimental results show a good performance of the overall embedded system."