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Control System Design - Index | Book Contents |
Chapter 1
| Section 1.5
1. The Excitement of Control Engineering
1.5.3 Sensors
Sensors are the eyes of control enabling one to see
what is going on. Indeed, one statement that is sometimes made
about control is: If you can measure it, you can control
it. This is obviously oversimplified and not meant literally.
Nonetheless, it is a catchy phrase highlighting the fact that
being able to make appropriate measurements is an intrinsic part
of the overall control problem. Moreover, new sensor technologies
often open the door to improved control performance.
Alternatively, in those cases where particularly important
measurements are not readily available, then one can often infer
these vital pieces of information from other observations. This
leads to the idea of a soft or virtual sensor. We
will see that this is one of the most powerful techniques in the
control engineer's bag of tools.
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