On the Standard Performance Criteria for Applied Control Design: PID, MPC or Machine Learning Controller?
Pouria Sarhadi
TL;DR
The paper addresses the lack of standardised, real-world testing criteria for applied control designs, especially as data-driven and ML approaches emerge. It proposes a framework that classifies performance metrics into tracking, control energy, and robustness categories, emphasizing post-design, black-box testing to ensure practical viability. Through simulation on an AUV yaw control problem, it shows that traditional PID (with anti-windup) and constrained MPC offer strong robustness and tracking under saturation and disturbances, while ML approaches require careful tuning and validation. The work argues that adopting these rigorous criteria will improve trust, prevent premature claims, and support sustainable, real-world deployment of diverse control strategies, including AI-driven controllers, in safety-critical systems.
Abstract
The traditional control theory and its application to basic and complex systems have reached an advanced level of maturity. This includes aerial, marine, and ground vehicles, as well as robotics, chemical, transportation, and electrical systems widely used in our daily lives. The emerging era of data-driven methods, Large Language Models (LLMs), and AI-based controllers does not indicate a weakness in well-established control theory. Instead, it aims to reduce dependence on models and uncertainties, address increasingly complex systems, and potentially achieve decision-making capabilities comparable to human-level performance. This revolution integrates knowledge from computer science, machine learning, biology, and classical control, producing promising algorithms that are yet to demonstrate widespread real-world applicability. Despite the maturity of control theory and the presence of various performance criteria, there is still a lack of standardised metrics for testing, evaluation, Verification and Validation ($V\&V$) of algorithms. This gap can lead to algorithms that, while optimal in certain aspects, may fall short of practical implementation, sparking debates within the literature. For a controller to succeed in real-world applications, it must satisfy three key categories of performance metrics: tracking quality, control effort (energy consumption), and robustness. This paper rather takes an applied perspective, proposing and consolidating standard performance criteria for testing and analysing control systems, intended for researchers and students. The proposed framework ensures the post-design applicability of a black-box algorithm, aligning with modern data analysis and $V\&V$ perspectives to prevent resource allocation to systems with limited impact or imprecise claims.