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Preface
xv
THE AUDIENCE
This text is designed for an introductory undergraduate course in control systems for
engineering students. There is very little demarcation between aerospace, chemical,
electrical, industrial, and mechanical engineering in control system practice; there-
fore,
this text is written without any conscious bias toward one discipline. Thus, it is
hoped that this book will be equally useful for all engineering disciplines and, per-
haps,
will assist in illustrating the utility of control engineering. The numerous prob-
lems and examples represent all fields, and the examples of the sociological,
biological, ecological, and economic control systems are intended to provide the
reader with an awareness of the general applicability of control theory to many
facets of life. We believe that exposing students of one discipline to examples and
problems from other disciplines will provide them with the ability to see beyond
their own field of study. Many students pursue careers in engineering fields other
than their own. For example, many electrical and mechanical engineers find them-
selves in the aerospace industry working alongside aerospace
engineers.
We
hope this
introduction to control engineering will give students a broader understanding of
control system design and analysis.
In its first ten editions, Modern
Control.
Systems has been used in senior-level
courses for engineering students at more than 400 colleges and universities. It also
has been used in courses for engineering graduate students with no previous back-
ground in control engineering.
THE ELEVENTH EDITION
A companion website is available to students and faculty using the eleventh edition.
The website contains practice exercises, all the m-files in the book, Laplace and
z-transform tables, written materials on matrix algebra, complex numbers, and sym-
bols,
units, and conversion factors. An icon will appear in the book margin whenever
there is additional related material on the website. Also, since the website provides
a mechanism for continuously updating and adding control-related materials of
interest to students and professors, it is advisable to visit the website regularly dur-
ing the semester or quarter when taking the course. The MCS website address is
http://www.prenhall.com/dorf.
With the eleventh edition, we continue to evolve the design emphasis that histori-
cally has characterized Modem Control Systems. Using the real-world engineering
problems associated with designing a controller for a disk drive read system, we pre-
sent the Sequential Design Example (identified by an arrow icon in the text), which is
considered sequentially in each chapter using the methods and concepts in that chap-
ter. Disk drives are used in computers of all sizes and they represent an important ap-
plication of control engineering. Various aspects of the design of controllers for the disk
drive read system are considered in each chapter. For example, in Chapter
1
we identify
the control
goals,
identify the variables to be controlled, write the control specifications,
and establish the preliminary system configuration for the disk drive.Then,
in
Chapter
2,
we obtain models of the process, sensors, and actuators. In the remaining chapters, we
continue the design process, stressing the main points of the chapters.