Consolidating Python Utilities to Facilitate Root Locus Design

Abstract

The root locus is a powerful utility in control system design. The root locus is an abstraction of a complex system, therefore, plotting it by hand is a mathematically elaborate and tedious process that becomes increasingly tedious for high-performance systems with finely tuned parameters. Python, a high-level interpreted programming language, can function as a utility to assist in the visualization and design of a control system. The root locus correlates the response of a system to its transfer function and its visualization is essential for the characterization and design of a high-performance control system. Python does not currently include a toolbox to plot and explore the root locus of a system. This project provided a simple software solution to explore the root locus in Python by leveraging existing utilities to create a single intuitive interface.