Product Description

Written to be equally useful for all engineering disciplines, this book is organized around the concept of control systems theory as it has been developed in the frequency and time domains. It provides coverage of classical control employing root locus design, frequency and response design using Bode and Nyquist plots. It also covers modern control methods based on state variable models including pole placement design techniques with full-state feedback controllers and full-state observers. The book covers several important topics including robust control systems and system sensitivity, state variable models, controllability and observability, computer control systems, internal model control, robust PID controllers, and computer-aided design and analysis. For all types of engineers who are interested in a solid introduction to control systems.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551280 in Books
• Published on: 2004-04-18
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 881 pages

Customer Reviews

A second look
The review I wrote previously was written from the standpoint of someone using this book as a chief reference for the course. After taking a second look at the book, a few things stand out:

There are many worked examples to help explain the fundamental concepts that are explained in the text.

The book contains many problems for students to work, including more advanced or computer based problems.

The incorporation of Matlab methods in this book provides a background very helpful to engineering students, as not many other books contain computer skills that should be taught along with the course.

Fundamentals are taught and are capable of understanding with proper patience.


That said, here are the problems I found with this book:

This is a 10th edition textbook, and by now the index should be much more thorough, and should especially reference important formulas.

Important equations are not typset in a way that makes them entirely obvious. Other books place boxes or highlight or use different colored text to emphasize important equations and formulas. Some equations in this book are set out with boxes, but the selection of what is boxed doesn't necessarily reflect what students might use, such as the angle critereon (equation 7.17)

Examples are placed in the middle of method steps, without a clear delineation. Examples have a clear header to designate where they begin, but the end of the examples tends to get lost, as the only clear marker for the end of an example is a shaded square at the end of a block of text. Other books tend to shade the entire background of an example, and give the examples more border space so that methods can be followed without necessarily having to read through examples.


Content wise, this book is valuable, but the organization and index should be much more refined for a 10th edition textbook.

Dorf, a good book but bad problem sets
This book has good explanations for learning the material, but the problems stink. My first controls class was under Kuo (Kuo & Golnaraghi, Automatic Control Systems), and this book has similar ordering of the material that I like. My students wanted more simple examples than Kuo's book had, unfortunately as I used this book I discovered that the problems are bad. They either give-away the answer by including all relevent equations, or they make the answer unobtainable by giving most of the equations but leaving out important aspects of the problem. For example, Ch4 p10 gives most the equation e=-ky, but that leaves the input R out of both the problem and the drawing; the equation should be e=r-ky. The solution key for this problem also finds a Torque (N*m) as the integral of a velocity (m/s); not getting the units right in a problem in the 10th edition is unacceptable! My impression was a group of new graduate students were sent out to develop a bunch of problems so a new edition could be printed, and what they came up with sometimes was simple (OK, you need easy problems to help develop confidence and understanding), and sometimes based on real systems (GREAT), but rarely clearly-presented and realistic. This is the fifth year I've taught this subject, and I worked in industry/research for 11 years before that. I know what a real controls problem looks like in the field. This book ALMOST did that part of it right, but the only way this is like horse shoes and and hand grenades is that it sometimes explodes in the students and professors face. Too bad, otherwise this would have been a great book with clear explanations and a good range of examples and problems.

From an Industrial Practitioner of Industrial Process Control
This book is an excellent option for students taking their first course in Control systems. The topics are covered in a clear way, with many examples, and illustrations.

This was one of the books I used back in college. The other one was Katsuhiko Ogata Modern Control Engineering. Both has been invaluable references.

I am an Electronics Engineering graduate and I have been working for the last 16 years as an Instrumentation, Automation, and Process Safety and Control Engineer for the Oil & Gas Industry. This book will be a useful reference if you are working with or studying Control Systems.