Customer Reviews

Computer controlled systems: Theory and design (Prentice-Hall information and system sciences series)

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Astrom Wittenmark's book on Computer Control Systems is a good book for intermediate and experienced people in the field of Computer Control Systems. It is excellent in its contents and coverage of the field as a whole.

What it needs is some details at certain places so that things will be easy to comprehend. What I mean is that its not the best book to have as a first text towards the subject. We used the book as a course text for advanced controls class. With little control background, I felt it very tough to read the book. But now that I am well versed with the field, I find this book handy to keep.

I first entered engineering school back in 1980. Since college, I have worked in various laboratory environments, both private and Federal. Consequently, I have read many papers and books related to the materials presented in this text. As I look back over the years, I find that this text is the most terse I have ever seen and is entirely inappropriate as an introductory text to the subject.

It is no exaggeration to say that the most important parts of the subject exist in what is *NOT* expressly said in the pages of this book. True, in engineering school one is required to think and solve problems, but this text does not even have enough proper expository to motivate the subject, nor does it have enough problems to properly exercise the mind on the concepts. If one needs so much supplementary material to master the topic, it might be wiser to simply use a better text.

After trying hard to find something to like about this text, I find little...it is terse to the point of being enigmatic.

Please, get a copy from an engineering library before you spend any money on it and judge for yourself.

This is a pretty good digital controls book. It's not the final authority on the subject, but it'll get you started. It has some weird notations and not as much insight as an analog control reference.

I'm a grad student in electrical engineering, and needed to review digital control, so I got this book. This book is fine as a review, but I wouldn't want to learn this material for the first time out of this book. A number of the explanations in the book (especially of the z-transform) were just two poorly done. One of plus of the book, however, was its explanation of implementation issues. This is was nice to see, as it's something that's often glossed over in controls classes.

I think they have written one of the best control books out there. And besides the authors are most respected in the control engineering community.