What is Automatic Control?
Automatic Control is sometimes referred to as ‘the hidden technology’, as it is all around us without us even realising it. Automatic Control is about ensuring that processes automatically behave in the desired manner.
The subject is probably best explained through a number of examples.
- Cruise control for cars and autopilots for aeroplanes and ships are examples of control engineering. Speeds and positions are measured and the information is sent to controllers, which nowadays are usually computers, which, based on the measurement signals, control throttle and engines.
- Temperature control in buildings is another example. Temperatures are measured and regulated to desired levels by controllers that control radiators or air flows.
- In the process industry, there are often thousands of controllers ensuring that pressure, flows, concentrations, levels and temperatures are controlled.
- Automatic Control also exists outside the world of industry and technology. The theory can, for example, be applied to economic, medical and biological systems. In the human body, for instance, there are control systems that attempt to maintain the body’s temperature at 37 degrees despite variations in the ambient temperature.
Automatic Control is therefore found in many contexts, but what is interesting is that there is a common underlying theory that is independent of the applications. This is why the same foundation course can be offered to so many programmes at LTH, and why researchers in such diverse fields.