Dynamic Systems and Control Engineering

Up to this point, we have developed the necessary tools to generate mathematical models of dynamic systems. The discussions in this area have covered physical systems comprising mechanical, electrical, thermal, and fluidic components, and, further, we have shown how some fundamental multi-domain problems may be addressed by the mechanical modeling approach. Under this paradigm, all the tools and techniques we have discussed inevitably lead to mathematical representations in the form of coupled ODEs of motion. Through these discussions, we have also demonstrated that the mechanical modeling approach does not necessarily produce a linear governing equation and may often result in mathematical models that have nonlinear terms. However, since the solution techniques for linear and nonlinear systems differ, all the tools we will discuss in Chs. 6–10 assume that the equations of motion are linear.