Introduction to Automatic Controls - Basic Automatic Control Fundamentals (International Textbooks in Mechanical Engineering)

The purpose of this book is to present basic automatic control fundamentals so that they can easily be grasped and applied. This means that concepts are stressed throughout, while unnecessary complication, which might obscure the basic ideas, are held to a minimum. The authors believe that, for engineering students, it is not enough just to understand fundamentals; some experience in applying them is equally as important. For this reason, a wide variety of physical systems is introduced for the purpose of illustrating the application of theory and indicating some of the assumptions made in combining theory and practice. UNITS COVER: 1) Orientation to Automatic Controls 2) Differential Equations for Physical Systems 3) Solving Differential Equations 4) Applying the Analog Computer 5) System Response 6) Laplace Transformation 7) Block Diagrams and Transfer Functions 8) Control Actions and System Types 9) Frequency Response 10) System Analysis Using Polar Plots (Nyquist Diagram) 11) System Analysis Using Logarithmic Plots (Bode Diagrams and Nichols Charts) 12) System Analysis Using Root-Locus Plots 13) System Compensation 14) Control System Nonlinearities 15) Introduction to Advanced Topics 16) Digital Computer Control 17) Appendix