PID Simulator

As obvious from the name, this software help in simulation of various PID controllers by merely changing their parameters. It may not be more useful at industrial level, but (I hope) students will find it helpful for their studies.

On a friend’s request, I searched for PID tuning software but could not succeed. Instead, I found these 5 (1 excel file and 4 exe). A brief description and download link of each of them, is given below:

1. PID Loop Simulator: This tool simulates a control loop consisting of a first order process with deadtime and a PID controller.
   • How to use: The process is specified by the process gain, time constant and dead time. The PID controller has 3 parameters: gain, integral and derivative. Key in these values into the appropriate cells. If the integral time is keyed in as 0, the integral term is ignored.
   • DOWNLOAD
   • Personal comment: Nice!!
2. PID Simulator 1.0.0.6: PID simulator is a simple PID simulator designed to help you get a feel of how to tune a PID by adjusting the various properties.
   • Requirement: .NET Framework should be installed. You can get it HERE (for 32-bit) & HERE (for 64-bit).
   • DOWNLOAD
   • Personal comment: OK but a little less user friendly.
3. PID Simulator: The module gives time and frequency domain views of the responses of a closed-loop system consisting of a PID controller and a process model. Many process models can be selected, controller parameters can be changed interactively, and the resulting responses are displayed instantaneously.
   • DOWNLOAD
   • Personal comment: Probably the 2nd best.
4. PID Loop Shaping Module: This module will give you insight into loop shaping using PID control.
   • DOWNLOAD
   • Personal comment: Unique!!!
5. CONTROLLER TUNING 101: This is the best PID simulator I could find, but unfortunately, this is a demo version. I did not observe any restriction in the demo version so far. It provides controller input fields with the help of a block diagram, which is quite helpful. After setting the values, click the ‘Run’ button to view the output graph.
   • DOWNLOAD
   • Personal comment: Best but Demo version.

RECOMMENDATION: Since, the total download size of the 5 simulators is less than 4MB, I shall recommend you to download and try each of the simulators. This will help us finding which of these is best.