Dynamic Systems and Control Engineering

Following our discussions in Ch. 5 on developing analytical and numerical solutions of system responses, Ch. 6 is focused on critical features of these solutions, known as , for systems with responses that do not tend to infinity when excited by a pulse input. The primary characteristics of these responses include the settling time, the percent overshoot, and the frequency of oscillations (i.e., if they exist), all of which can be obtained analytically, numerically, or experimentally using simple test inputs – such as steps or sinusoids. Once the response characteristics are established for a test input, the implications for more complex excitations can be understood by applying the concept of superposition (see Sec. 1.3) for linear systems.