Steuersignals

Steuersignals are signals that convey commands to a system to alter its behavior. They represent the input to a controller or actuator and can be analog or digital, continuous or discrete, and transmitted over electrical wires, fieldbuses, or wireless links. In control theory, the control signal is typically denoted u(t) and is generated by a controller from the difference between a reference signal and the measured output.

The form of Steuersignals depends on the application and the actuator. Analog signals use voltage or current levels to position an actuator, while digital or coded signals provide discrete commands. Techniques such as pulse width modulation (PWM) or pulse frequency modulation (PFM) can approximate analog effects with digital hardware. In digital control systems, the control signal is often a sequence of values sampled at a fixed rate.

In practice, Steuersignals are central to industrial automation, robotics, automotive electronics, and embedded systems. They are transmitted via fieldbuses such as CAN, EtherCAT, Profibus, or simple analog lines, and they must meet constraints on bandwidth, latency, resolution, and noise immunity. Reliability and safety considerations include fail-safe behavior, redundancy, and robust signaling protocols.

The controller computes the Steuersignal from sensor feedback to minimize error, using methods such as PID, state feedback, or model predictive control. The effectiveness of a control system depends on how accurately and promptly the Steuersignal drives the actuators to achieve the desired output.