Some reflections on analogue simulation and control engineering

摘要

Control engineering started to emerge as a discipline around 1940 and since then simulation has played an integral part in both its theoretical development and application. In the early days simulation was done with mechanical devices, but with the development of electronics came the analogue computer, which further developed into the analogue with some digital logic and then the hybrid computer, before digital simulation took over. Today simulation employing digital languages, because of their easy of use, is now more extensive than ever in control engineering, with Simulink, because of its link to the excellent control analytical environment of MATLAB, perhaps the most popular. The early days of the analogue computer and control engineering were both stimulated to a large extent by the wartime activities of gun control and aerospace vehicle control. At the time control theory was restricted almost entirely to the frequency response approach and simulations were required to understand the behaviour of large systems and the effects of nonlinearity. These application areas continued to dominate analogue computer usage in what may be considered its heyday from around the mid-40's to the early 70's.