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Frequency 14 Response

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Frequency 14 Response

Dost thou love Life? Then do not squander Time; for that is the stuff Life is made.

—Benjamin Franklin

Enhancing Your Career

Career in Control Systems

Control systems are another area of electrical engineering where circuit analysis is used. A control system is designed to re gulate the beha vior of one or more variables in some desired manner. Control systems play major roles in our everyday life. Household appliances such as heating and air -conditioning systems, switch-controlled thermostats, w ashers and dryers, cruise controllers in automobiles, elevators, traffic lights, manufacturing plants, navigation systems—all utilize control systems. In the aerospace field, precision guidance of space probes, the wide range of operational modes of the space shuttle, and the ability to maneuv er space vehicles remotely from earth all require knowledge of control systems. In the manuf acturing sector, repetitive production line operations are increasingly performed by robots, which are programmable control systems designed to operate for many hours without fatigue.

Control engineering inte grates circuit theory and communication theory. It is not limited to an y specific engineering discipline but may involve en vironmental, chemical, aeronautical, mechanical, ci vil, and electrical engineering. For example, a typical task for a control system engineer might be to design a speed regulator for a disk drive head.

A thorough understanding of control systems techniques is essen tial to the electrical engineer and is of great v alue for designing control systems to perform the desired task.

A welding robot. © Vol. 1 PhotoDisc/Getty Images RF

Learning Objectives

By using the information and exercises in this chapter you will be able to:

    1. Understand what transfer functions are and how to determine them.
    1. Understand the decibel scale, why we use it, and how to use it.
    1. Understand Bode plots, and know why we use them and how to determine them.
    1. Understand series and parallel resonance, why they are important, and how to find them.
    1. Understand passive filters.
    1. Understand active filters.
    1. Discuss magnitude and frequency scaling and why they are important.