Understanding PID Control, Part 4: A PID Tuning Guide

It can be difficult to navigate all the resources that promise to explain the secrets of PID tuning. Some proclaim that PID tuning is an art that requires finesse and experience, while...

Understanding Kalman Filters, Part 4: An Optimal State Estimator Algorithm

Discover the set of equations you need to implement a Kalman filter algorithm. You’ll learn how to perform the prediction and update steps of the Kalman filter algorithm, and you’ll see how...

The Radar Equation | Understanding Radar Principles

Learn how the radar equation combines several of the main parameters of a radar system in a way that gives you a general understanding of how the system will perform. The radar equation is a...

Modeling Physical Systems, An Overview

This video sets the stage for the topics that I want to cover over the next month or two. This is an overview of how you go from a physical system to a linear model where you can design a...

Introduction: PID Controller Design

In this tutorial we will introduce a simple, yet versatile, feedback compensator structure: the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller. The PID controller is widely employed...

What's a Control System and Why Should I Care? A whirlwind tour through the ...

This paper aims to provide some introduction, a cheat sheet, and some context for college level STEM students about to take that first controls class. In some cases, it provides context...

Autonomous Navigation, Part 4: Path Planning with A* and RRT

This video explores some of the ways that we can use a map like a binary occupancy grid for motion and path planning. We briefly cover what motion planning means and how we can use a graph...

Model Predictive Control

This lecture provides an overview of model predictive control (MPC), which is one of the most powerful and general control frameworks. MPC is used extensively in industrial control settings...

Adaptive Control Basics: What Is Model Reference Adaptive Control?

Use an adaptive control method called model reference adaptive control (MRAC). This controller can adapt in real time to variations and uncertainty in the system that is being controlled...

The AVA Flight Computer

This video describes the board design, hardware architecture, and software components of the All Vehicle Avionics (AVA) flight computer that was designed by Joe Barnard of BPS Space.  This...

Discrete control #3: Designing for the zero-order hold

This is the third video on discrete control and in this video, I want to clear up a confusion that I caused last time regarding using the ZOH method to discretize a continuous controller and...

Improving the Beginner's PID - Introduction

In conjunction with the release of the new Arduino PID Library Brett has released this series of posts that explain his PID code. He start's with what he call's “The Beginner’s PID.”  He...

Understanding Control Systems: Components of a Feedback Control System

This video introduces the components of a feedback control system and how they interact with each other.  

Learn basic terminology by walking through examples that include driving a car...

But what is the Fourier Transform? A visual introduction.

An animated introduction to the Fourier Transform.

Nyquist Stability Criterion, Part 1

An explanation of the Nyquist Stability Criterion. This video steps through the importance of the criterion, how to interpret the Nyquist plot graphically, and why it is the way it is....

Resonance in Nature and Bioinspired Squid Robots

Bioinspired robots combine the best of both biology and engineering. Using tools learned from nature, we can build squid-like and other squishy robots to improve current capabilities in...

Understanding the Z-Transform

This intuitive introduction shows the mathematics behind the Z-transform and compares it to its similar cousin, the discrete-time Fourier transform. Mathematically, the Z-transform is...

Trimming and Linearization, Part 1: What is Linearization?

Why go through the trouble of linearizing a model? To paraphrase Richard Feynman, it’s because we know how to solve linear systems. With a linear model we can more easily design a controller...

Discrete control #2: Discretize! Going from continuous to discrete domain

This is the second video in the discrete control series. It focuses on discretizing a continuous system - getting to the z-domain from the s-domain.

A real control system - how to start designing

Let’s design a control system the way you might approach it in a real situation rather than an academic one. In this video, I step through a control problem and show how control theory is...

Machine Learning & Text Processing Lectures

This is the video lecture collection by Victor Lavrenko.

Drone Simulation and Control, Part 1: Setting Up the Control Problem

Quadcopters and other styles of drones are extremely popular, partly because they have sophisticated programmed control systems that allow them to be stable and fly autonomously with very...

What's a Control System and Why Should I Care?

This paper is designed as a primer for college level STEM students about to take their first formal class in feedback control systems. This means that the explanations assume the reader has...

Control Systems in Practice, Part 4: Why Time Delay Matters

Time delays exist in two varieties: signal distorting delays, like phase lag, in which each frequency is delayed by a different amount of time, resulting in a distorted signal shape; and non...

Understanding Control Systems: Feedback Control Systems

This video provides introductory examples to learn about the basics of feedback control (closed-loop control) systems.

Learn how feedback control is used to automate processes and discover...