A man-machine interface for computer-aided design and simulation of control systems

Abstract

The philosophy of the design of a human-computer interface for computer-aided design and simulation of control systems is described in this paper. It is shown that, in a high-resolution colour graphics workstation environment, graphical descriptions of control systems in the form of block diagrams and signal flow graphs with standard mathematical text make the interface natural and friendly for the user. Manipulation, reduction and transformation of system representations are facilitated by rule-based methods, and computer algebra systems are shown to have a place in these and other forms of mathematical processing used in the design process.