We want you to imagine that you have a job - actually several jobs.

These jobs will involve designing control systems.

Imagine that you have been hired by a company that produces
specialty metals. They are setting up a new production line for a
new kind of magnetic material that they are producing for
shielding rooms from magnetic fields produced by high currents.
The production of this metal involves heating it to very specific
temperatures and holding those temperatures for specified
periods of time. Actually, the rates of temperature increase and
decrease between the set points are also critical. If the
temperatures vary too much from what is required the metal
produced will have to be scrapped. Are you ready for this job?
It's not tough conceptually, but can you guarantee the company
that they can go forward with confidence that the temperature
control systems will work to produce the required temperature vs
time profile?
Here's another situation.
Imagine that are part of an aircraft control system design team.
Your company has just bid on the control of a new supersonic
aircraft. Your team will need to design the autopilot systems for
the aircraft. In other words, you need to design systems that
will keep the aircraft at the same altitude and on the same
heading when the pilot is not actuating the controls. Can you
design a system and guarantee that the system will work?
Remember also that you need to design this system so that it
works when the fuel tanks are full and when they are nearing
empty at the end of a flight, and that the system has to work in
all kinds of conditions including heavy cross winds.
There are numerous other situations we could dream up. These
situations could exist. They do exist. They're not really made up.
There are many situations which involve a need for a design of a

control system. What do you need to do to design a system? (More

Goals)
You need to understand the general schemes that can be used to
control a system.
You will need to understand the system you're trying to control.
If you're an electrical engineer and you're in on the design of a
control system for a chemical plant or an aircraft, then you'll
need to use the material from some of those courses you
thought you'd never have to deal with again.
You need to develop your ability to predict how a system
behaves, and that means that you will need to work on some
mathematical techniques that involve differential equation
solution.
What You'll Need
Here are some of the topics you'll need along with some links to those
topics.
You need to understand the general schemes that can be used to
control a system. That includes proportional control, integral
control, and combinations of proportional and integral (plus
derivative?) control. That's something you will get to soon
enough.
You will need to understand the system you're trying to control.
If you're an electrical engineer and you're in on the design of a
control system for a chemical plant or an aircraft, then you'll
need to use the material from some of those courses you thought
you'd never have to deal with again. (And, we hope that you did
not sell back those books!) We discuss some of those issues in
the lessons on modelling systems.
You need to develop your ability to predict how a system behaves,
and that means that you will need to work on some mathematical
techniques that involve differential equation solution.