Control Systems Made Simple | Beginner’s Guide

This course covers the basics of modeling, simulations and control of mechanical and electrical systems. The course is divided into 3 main sections:

1. Mechanical systems modeling, 

2. Electrical systems modeling

3. Control systems design

Section #1: Mechanical System Modeling 

The section covers the basics of how to derive mathematical models from scratch, draw free body diagrams, apply Newton’s laws of motion and simulate mechanical systems using MATLAB/Simulink. This section also covers Laplace domains, transfer function development, and system simulations using several inputs such as impulse and step inputs.

Section #2: Electrical System Modeling

This section covers electrical system modeling fundamentals. It covers how to mathematically model basic elements such as capacitors, resistors and inductors, how to apply Kirchoff’s circuit law to solve various electrical circuit. The section also covers advanced topics such as how to model DC motors, and batteries in MATLAB/Simulink environment.

Section #3: Control systems fundamentals/Design 

This section includes the basics of control system and the steps required to build any control system. This section covers one of the most famous controllers known as PID or Proportional Integral Derivative controller. The section includes basics of how to perform block diagram model reduction and how to assess dynamic system performance. Furthermore, the section covers how to perform PID tuning to achieve the best desired system performance.