Schaum's Outline of Feedback and Control Systems (Schaum's)

Rating:
Summary: Not a bad book, needs improvement
Review: Dear fellow readers: I recently read Schaum's outline of feedback and control systems. This book was recommended to me as a text that will give me a clear understanding of control systems. I am sorry to say that this book did not meet my original expectations. The basic concepts are very well illustrated in the first two chapters, but then it dives into explaining the mathematics of control systems (differential equations, z-transform etc.). They're simply too much emphasis of the vocabulary, which is down right confusing. The book also fails to give a clear picture of how different design methods (e.g. Root-Locus) can be employed in a real situation. It is my recommendation that this book should not be the only source of information, and must be used in junction with another control book. This statement holds true especially for university students. In a positive note, there are many examples that can help the reader gain insightful knowledge in this subject, and it also does a good job giving an overall picture of how different concepts relate to each other. These alone are good enough reasons to have a look at this book when studying control systems.

Rating:
Summary: Good Remainder for The Basic Concept
Review: I am a student of Graduate School, and my major is Adaptive Control. I consider this book very good book for me, especially because it summarizes and covers most of the basic concept and method about control engineering, which I sometimes forget. So, by having this book now, I can anytime find and reread the part I have forgotten. Of course, it will be better if you also accompany this book with others books which explain more detil about control.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Undgrad Course
Review: I only bought this book after I went through undegraduate control and digital control classes. And after getting very fragmented knowledge of these disciplines, this book was very good in helping me sort it out. Yes, if you don't know a thing about control theory or don't have basic math background, it probably is hard to grasp without any other sourses. But if you have some basic understanding of the subject, then it is a very good review and reference for the classical control theory. I used this book for review before taking a PhD preliminary exam in controls, and it helped a lot. Now I am using it for the same reason for the job I just started. I like the way it describes digital control theory in parallel with the continuous-time controls, which is the best way to understand the discrete-time tools, instead of taking a whole other class starting from scratch. Constant examples to illustrate the theory are very good, so are the excersises. Mind you, this book doesn't go into details like some 800pp. volumes but it doesn't leave out anything important either. I highly recommend this book to undegrad and grad students, as well as a reference for the engineers.

Rating:
Summary: Detailed Overview of the Classical Control Theory
Review: I only bought this book after I went through undegraduate control and digital control classes. And after getting very fragmented knowledge of these disciplines, this book was very good in helping me sort it out. Yes, if you don't know a thing about control theory or don't have basic math background, it probably is hard to grasp without any other sourses. But if you have some basic understanding of the subject, then it is a very good review and reference for the classical control theory. I used this book for review before taking a PhD preliminary exam in controls, and it helped a lot. Now I am using it for the same reason for the job I just started. I like the way it describes digital control theory in parallel with the continuous-time controls, which is the best way to understand the discrete-time tools, instead of taking a whole other class starting from scratch. Constant examples to illustrate the theory are very good, so are the excersises. Mind you, this book doesn't go into details like some 800pp. volumes but it doesn't leave out anything important either. I highly recommend this book to undegrad and grad students, as well as a reference for the engineers.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent for Undgrad Course
Review: I'm currently taking a Feedback Control Theory course at the undergrad level, and I think this book is an excellent exposition of classical control theory. Our text for the course is Feedback Control of Dynamic Systems, written by people from Stanford. Schaum's Outline actually has more *theory* than the textbook we are using. It eliminates all of the frills and pretty colored diagrams in favor of exposing everything an undergraduate would have trouble with. And for those people who think the emphasis is only on problem solving, this "Outline" has more mathematical proof than the book from Stanford I just mentioned! I highly recommend using this book to get off on the right foot in control systems, whether you are an engineer just learning the material or an undergraduate; it solidifies the foundations of the theory so that practical problems will come more easily. Also, it is a practical book as well.