What every engineer needs to know about feedback control. Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems, 6/e covers the material that every engineer, and most scientists and prospective managers, needs to know about feedback control, including concepts like stability, tracking, and robustness. Each chapter presents the fundamentals along with worked-out examples, all within a real-world context and with a historical background. The text also ties methods together so t… More >>
Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems
Tags: feedback control of dynamic systems
#1 by K. Wu on June 28, 2010 - 4:10 pm
Almost every subject worthy of a textbook already has 1-3 classic titles all new students should read and use. For feedback and control systems, there’s Ogata’s Modern Control Engineering – and then there are second-rate, tree-killing (where are Ents when you want ‘em?), mind-numbing, hair-tearing, expletive-inducing texts like this one. And no, swearing in French while trying to work through a problem doesn’t make it more enjoyable either. First, this book is poorly written – long, tiresome, dry writing that lulls you to sleep. Second, there are errors strewn throughout, which because of the lackluster writing you’ll initially miss (example, page 221, Ziegler-Nichols tuning, equation 4.52 and fig. 4.13 – mistakes in parameter names can drive you nuts until you read Ogata’s clear and concise version). Third, the trivial example problems are little help in solving the harder problems, causing you to rapidly awaken from your reading stupor into frustration and mild terror as you discover the aforementioned errors. At that point, drop this book, reach for Ogata and/or the Schaum’s Outline, and discover that introductory controls can make sense and even be elegant. As an aside, I did well in controls with no real EE background, but that’s despite this book – praise be unto Ogata. Professors, please ignore the pretty cover and skip this expensive waste of paper, and use Ogata – your students will learn more effectively and may even continue further in the subject.
Rating: 1 / 5
#2 by BUS/ENG grad student on June 28, 2010 - 6:23 pm
As an EE student taking a Systems and Controls course using this book, I have grown not only to hate the book but also abhor the teachers who adopted it at my University. The book is confusing and skips many steps in examples. I spend most of my time trying to figure out how the book gets from step A to step B. I should be spending most of my time learning from the examples – not guessing how the book gets from one step to another. There is no clear overview as to what is trying to be taught. Some concepts are explained solely through examples – and those examples are not clear (e.g. Chap 4. sect. 4.1). If you are an instructor, please don’t assign this book. Go the no book route if there is no other available. I’ve spent too many late nights frustrated trying to figure these topics out. The Shaum’s outline is much better.
Rating: 1 / 5
#3 by nonamespecified on June 28, 2010 - 7:08 pm
As a practicing engineer, I found the book’s sections on PID controllers and Multivariable control to be more informative than my other references, including the venerable Ogata.
Though perhaps the objections listed in the other reviews are valid when the text is used for an introductory course, I would just like to point out the text had value for me in understanding real-world PID controllers. Not sure if I would recommend it over Ogata for an introductory course, though.
Both Ogata and this text make extensive use of Matlab, which is almost a requirement to have in order to follow the examples. The author makes available all his Matlab source code on his website, as well.
Rating: 4 / 5
#4 by J. Chen on June 28, 2010 - 9:32 pm
ok, after being with this book for 5 weeks. NOW, I have to say something about this book. I am now doing my homework and I have to read this book to do it, but in those examples, I dont’ see much steps, all I see are “sudden jumps”. Cmon, give me a break.. show me the steps… I do not want to spend hours on finding out what the missing steps are. If you are a beginner and dont’ know much about feedback, DO NOT buy this book or you will have a hard time. Also, the way this book interprets the problems is not easy to understand either.
Rating: 1 / 5
#5 by David Geesaman (geesaman@newsguy.com) on June 28, 2010 - 9:44 pm
I was required to purchase this book for a class, and I felt that the material in the text did little to prepare me for the exercises. The examples rarely reflected the exercises (for which no solutions are available), the example solutions were exceedingly brief, with little discussion of the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of each step. The lack of solutions is pained by the poor correlation between examples and exercises. I feel that more basics need to be covered before the text dives into applications for this to be a good introductory book to controls. I’m willing to agree that this book is good for those who know these basics, but it is certainly not a stand-alone resource for beginners, and an instructor must be ready to patch the gaping holes left by the text.
Rating: 1 / 5