I am now reading Tim Westcott's "Applied Control Theory for Embedded
Systems"

I like it very much, and I want to pose some questions about it.

What Tim is describing here is usually known as dynamic controls. Any
other names?

Often it deals with the control of things that move, or change
temperature. Inherent in it is a model of the plant being controlled.

But in popular use, this kind of controls gets lost. I see fuzzy logic
as the antithesis of such. But still, the fuzzy logic people have
claimed some impressive results. They claim to have balanced inverted
pendulums, double jointed inverted, even flexible inverted.

They have no such model, they just tweak.


Likewise, there is the whole body of modern controls, done in the time
domain, without the Laplace or Z-transform. This has now reach the
level of h infinity, an adaptive form.

I don't think Tim deals with this, only with the conventional, or
frequency domain approach.

My concern is that modern controls may not have the kinds of
applicaitons really claimed for it. I learned it in school, but have
questions about how it is really used.

I even question how conventional controls is really used.

I do agree that most of the embedded community knows little of dynamic
controls. Their idea of control lacks the strict real time and tight
plant model.

Comments, views? I'm looking for applications of conventional and
modern controls, and DSP.


Come join, where Tim's Book now has its own thread:
http://groups.google.com/group/realt...al_and_control

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