You will want to join the Control Theory group on Facebook if, or you know you are a Control theorist when: * For you, Vibration Control is not only a Sex toy. * Finding the good frequenc…

Guidance, Navigation and Control are often together. It makes perfect sense because all three of them depend on control theory and because they are the components of the software part of a Control System. But do you clearly know the differences be…

This post is part of a series about Guidance, Navigation and Control. See the table of contents here. Guidance Guidance refers to the questions ”where am I going to?”, “How can the vehicle follow a trajectory?**”. The traje…

Can you recommend a book or paper that describes what you’ve outlined in specific detail. I’m relatively new to control theory, and I’m interested in understanding how control engineers actually set up all these problems and what kind of mathematical approaches they use to solve them.

Thanks!

@Julia, the first book that comes to my mind is Aircraft Control and Simulation by Brian L. Stevens and Frank L. Lewis.

It is a really good one because it gives concrete examples of aircraft control systems. It will really give you the bases of an autopilot.

You can definitely begin by this book. Because it will explain clearly what a CS is and how it is designed. However, it is not a theoretical book so you will need then to refer to a more theoretical book.

Undergrad level:

• System Dynamics by Katsuhiko Ogata

Then, at grad level, there are tons of CS books.

Some references are:

• Non Linear Systems by Hassan K. Khalil (Quite advanced but it is a must)

Then these 2 books are good but I did not find them self sufficient. It is better to use them with a professor for a course:

• Modern Control Theory by William L. Brogan
• Continous and Discrete Control Systems by John F. Dorsey

And about the mathematical approach used, Control Theory can be seen as a branch of Dynamical Systems Theory, itself a branch of Differential Equations Theory, a branch of Analysis. Control Theory makes also an heavy use of Algebra.

I appreciate the information and for the help regarding actuators and other components. Great blog.

If economy was an airplane, that airplane would go across a severe zone of turbulences. Then, a passenger would ask the air hostess “can I talk to the pilot, please? Because this pilot does not seem very good”. The hostess would answer…