Foundations of Control Engineering

Book:
Marc Bodson, Foundations of Control Engineering, independently published through Amazon, ISBN: 978-1705847466, January 2020.

Available at: www.amazon.com/dp/1705847463

Click here to download the pdf.

Complementary material

Related paper

M. Bodson, “Explaining the Routh-Hurwitz Criterion: A Tutorial Presentation,” IEEE Control Systems, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 45-51, 2020.

Click here to download the paper

Software lab experiments with Matlab and a touchpad

Test your manual control skills by playing with three classical control experiments.
Place the m-files in Matlab's working directory (also called current folder).Type the name of the file (e.g., bbeam) and choose option 1 for manual control.
The horizontal location of the cursor determines the value of the control input.
Type ctrl-C in the command window to stop.

bbeam.m Ball and beam experiment.

invpend.m Inverted pendulum experiment.

flex.m Flexible beam experiment.

You may also design and test automatic controllers by following the instructions in the pdf handouts below.
The additional m-files give templates for the controller and controller initialization codes to be developed.
These files should also be placed in Matlab's working directory.

bbeam.pdf, bbeamc.m, bbeamcinit.m Ball and beam experiment.

invpend.pdf, invpendc.m, invpendcinit.m Inverted pendulum experiment.

flex.pdf, flexc.m, flexcinit.m Flexible beam experiment.

Lab experiments on phase-locked loops

These labs require standard electronic equipment and cheap parts.

pllbasic.pdf Basic phase-locked loop experiment.

plladv.pdf Advanced phase-locked loop experiment.

This web page is maintained by Professor Marc Bodson, of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Utah. Please see the University of Utah Web disclaimer. For questions or comments, please send an e-mail to marc.bodson@utah.edu.

Last updated: May 30, 2025