The Effect of the Quantization Error on the Control Quality of Main Steam Temperature Control for Power Stations

The quantization error is directly proportional to the quantization unit value. The quantization unit value depends on the number of digit bits of an A/D converter or a D/A converter. The accuracy performance of a control system is probably affected by the quantization error. For the main steam temperature system in power station, it is suitable to select 12 or 16 bits A/D converters. The quantizer is a typical non-linear element. So, it can lead to the effect to drop the control quality with unexpectedly disturbance or self-oscillation. If there is white noise with proper strength, the bad effect of the quantization error can cancel out. The simulation results show that selecting the higher precision A/D converters do not mean getting the more improvement on the control quality.