What is “deadband” in process control engineering?
A bunch of hippies in tye-dye shirts playing extra-long jams… Actually, it’s a control zone where no action is taken. It prevents a control system from hunting endlessly back and forth. Think of it as a kind of windowing function. It differs from hysteresis in that there is no control output in the deadband. For example, gears with play in them have a mechanical deadband – slack (ahem) if you will – that must be overcome when changing direction. This isn’t the same thing as hysteretic snap action. An electronic version would be a PNP-NPN push-pull driver pair with a dead band inserted to prevent both of them being turned on at the same time (second link).
