Scope: Following his book on the origin of control engineering (1800-1930), the author now traces development through the critical period 1930-1955, widely identified as the period of "classical" control theory.
In the 1930s basic automatic control devices were developed and used in process industries, as were servos for the control of aircraft and ships and amplifiers for the telephone system and early computers etc. During the war many disparate ideas were brought together for the development of aircraft tracking and response systems -- leading to classical control theory which dominated the field through the 1950s. The foundations were also being laid for the introduction of what we now term "modern" control theory.
Historians of electrical engineering, control engineering and technology; Control and systems engineers; Electrical, industrial and mechanical engineers.
Control technology in the 1930s; Process control: technology and theory; The electronic negative feedback amplifier; Theory and design of servomechanisms; Wartime: problems and organisation; Development of design techniques for servomechanisms; Smoothing and prediction; The classical years: 1945-1955; Bibliography; Selected technical publications; Index.