Early control textbooks in The Netherlands

Abstract

This chapter reviews three of the early control textbooks in the Netherlands: (1) Elementaire Theorie van de Automatische Procesregeling (Elementary Theory of Automatic Process Control), (2) Regeltechniek en Automatisering in de Procesindustrie (Control and Automation in Process Industry), and (3) Regeltechniek. Elementaire Theorie van de Automatische Procesregeling discusses the elementary concepts of open-loop and closed-loop control, block diagrams, and closed-loop transfers, first for static systems, and then for first-order and second-order dynamical systems. The frequency response function is introduced, and Bode diagrams, polar (Nyquist) diagrams, and Nichols diagrams are analyzed. At the end of the book some nonlinear phenomena are discussed: actuator limitations, dead zone, hysteresis, and friction. Typical examples include mixing systems and level control systems. Regeltechniek en Automatisering in de Procesindustrie treats properties of dynamical processes in terms of differential equations and Laplace domain representations. Basic control operations such as PID control are treated and analyzed in their time response effects. Dynamic stabilizing control systems are considered under the influence of stochastic type of disturbances. Examples include typical processes from process industry: mixing and heating processes, as well as (petro-) chemical processes. Regeltechniek extensively discusses transfer function representation and properties of first order and second order systems with time delays, Bode and Nyquist diagrams and PID control, and Nyquist stability criterion, as well as the tuning of (PID-) controllers. Examples are from process control and servo systems. Stochastic processes and nonlinear phenomena are highlighted.