Feedforward Control
Feedforward control is a proactive control strategy in engineering and automation systems that anticipates disturbances or changes in a process and adjusts control actions before they affect the output. It uses a mathematical model of the system to predict the impact of known disturbances and applies corrective measures in advance, rather than reacting to errors after they occur. This approach is often combined with feedback control to improve system performance and stability.
Developers should learn feedforward control when working on systems requiring high precision, fast response times, or where disturbances are predictable, such as in robotics, industrial automation, or process control applications. It is particularly useful in scenarios where feedback control alone leads to delays or overshoot, such as in temperature regulation, motion control, or chemical processing, as it can reduce error and improve efficiency by compensating for known variables upfront.