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I have a feedback loop with transfer $L(z)= \frac{H(z)C(z)}{1+H(z)C(z)}$.

$$H(z) = h\quad \text{and} \quad C(z) = \frac{K}{z-\alpha}.$$

If I manually calculate the transfer function, I get:

$$L(z) = \frac{Kh}{z-\alpha + Kh}$$

But if I let MATLAB do the calculation I get:

$$L(z) = \frac{z-\alpha}{z-\alpha}\frac{Kh}{z-\alpha + Kh}$$

$L(z)$ is unstable with $\alpha=2$ and $K=\frac{1}{h}$. The second transfer function (calculated with MATLAB) has two poles $(1,2)$ of which one is outside the unit circle. So the second one seems to be correct. What is wrong with the first one?

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  • $\begingroup$ What matlab function are you using? There is a pole-zero cancellation in the matlab version of $L(z)$. $\endgroup$
    – Peter K. ♦
    May 5, 2013 at 19:51
  • $\begingroup$ What do you mean by "$L(z)$ is unstable", exactly? The first TF looks correct to me. $\endgroup$
    – lxop
    May 5, 2013 at 20:46
  • $\begingroup$ @PeterK. I create z with tf('z', -1) and then just do C = K/(z-alpha) and L = HC/(1+HC). $\endgroup$
    – i.amniels
    May 5, 2013 at 21:02
  • $\begingroup$ @lxop with given values of K and alpha, the output of L is not bounded. For example step(L) will explode. $\endgroup$
    – i.amniels
    May 5, 2013 at 21:03
  • $\begingroup$ According to the Mathworks z = tf('z',-1) means you've created a discrete time system with a sampling rate of -1. That seems wrong. Quote: z = tf('z',Ts) to specify a TF model with sample time Ts using a rational function in the discrete-time variable, z. $\endgroup$
    – Peter K. ♦
    May 5, 2013 at 21:09

1 Answer 1

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Not really an answer, but let's work it out with $H(z) = h$ and $C(z) = \frac{K}{z-\alpha}$.:

$$ \begin{array} \ L(z) &=& \frac{H(z)C(z)}{1+H(Z)C(z)}\\ &=& \frac{h \frac{K}{z-\alpha}}{ 1 + h \frac{K}{z-\alpha}}\\ &=& \frac{h K}{ z - \alpha + h K}\\ &=& \frac{h K}{ z - \alpha + h K}\ \ \frac{z - \beta}{ z - \beta} \end{array} $$

I added the last line to show what I mean by a pole-zero cancellation. $\beta$ can be any value; if the pole and the zero at $\beta$ cancel out, the overall value of $\frac{z - \beta}{ z - \beta}$ is 1.

The trick will be to figure out why matlab inserts the extra $\frac{z - \alpha}{ z - \alpha}$ in there in the first plcae,

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