I am given to understand that there exists software for tuning PID controllers. I haven't had much luck finding references, though. Pros/cons for algorithms, and references for them?
ADDED: I'm specifically looking for a description (scholarly or otherwise) of how automatic tuning software does its job; not references to automatic tuning software or packages. My use case is not "I have a PID control loop I want to automatically tune" but rather, "I wish to write a piece of software to automatically tune PID control loops for particular pieces of hardware, so that others do not have to do the job manually."