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When the actuator hits its limits, the integral term can keep accumulating error, pushing the controller output beyond what the plant can deliver. This is integral windup. The way to handle it effectively is to prevent the integral term from continuing to grow when saturation occurs. That’s exactly what anti-windup schemes do, often by stopping or reducing integration during saturation or by adjusting the integral based on the actual actuator output (back-calculation). Clamping the integral term is a simple, practical form of this idea: you limit the value the integral term can take so it can’t wind up during periods when the actuator can’t respond.

This approach is preferred because it preserves the benefits of integral action—eliminating steady-state error—when the actuator is able to respond, while preventing excessive accumulation that would cause overshoot, oscillations, and slow recovery once the actuator comes out of saturation. In contrast, turning the integral gain to zero or relying on proportional action removes the integral contribution entirely or ignores windup, which degrades steady-state accuracy and overall performance.