VIII Preface
hydraulics, thermal, and hybrid ones. Along this chapter, modeling examples of each
type of system are illustrated and implemented using SIMSCAPE and SIMULINK.
Once it is explained how models of systems can be obtained, Chapter 3,
introduces the reader into the basics of the System and Automation Control
Engineering through the concept of the transfer function. The transfer function
converts differential equations into algebraic expressions which largely facilitate
the study of the behavior of linear and time invariant systems. This chapter
presents the Laplace transformation and its properties through a variety of
examples. It ends illustrating block diagrams and the rules for their simplification,
permitting the reduction of complex systems to a unique transfer function.
Chapter 4 copes with the response analysis of typical first order, second order
and n-order systems. The temporal characteristics involved in systems’ responses
are studied and related to the roots of their characteristic equations (poles). Such
relation is further analyzed by means of the root locus technique. The root locus
depicts the place where the poles can be located as long as a system parameter
varies. The rules for its construction are detailed while exercises are presented
using the rltool graphical interface of MATLAB. This chapter also addresses the
stability as well as the steady-state error concepts which become indispensable in
any control application.
An introduction to control systems is given in Chapter 5, motivating the
utilization of controllers, i.e. particular systems that modify the behavior of others.
It focuses on their design and study by using the techniques and concepts covered
in the previous chapters. Special attention is paid to the most spread controller, the
PID controller, which is being using in most of the modern systems since the 30’s.
A detailed analysis of its three components is presented through practical
exercises on MATLAB and SIMULINK.
Chapter 6 introduces the system simulation, its objectives and benefits. From
the modeling of a given system (real or intended), to the understanding of its
internal characteristics, the last natural step is the simulation of its behavior
against different input signals. Computer simulation brings us the possibility of
testing avoiding the need of acting on the real system, with the obvious
advantages, e.g. a wrong decision taken on simulation will not cause any damage
to the real system. In this chapter simulation of linear and non-linear systems is
approached through the SIMULINK and SIMSCAPE computer tools. The former
is well-known a widely used tool for system simulation although it exhibits the
disadvantage of requiring the dynamic equations involved in the system which
normally limits the complexity of the systems at hand. In contrast, SIMSCAPE
permits the designer, as well as non-expert users, to model and simulate complex
systems through a library of blocks that represent real components and their
implicit dynamics.
The remaining is divided in four appendices with user manuals and guidelines
for the software tools employed along the examples and exercises of this book.
Javier Fernández de Cañete
Cipriano Galindo
Inmaculada García Moral