Hendrik Wade Bode was an American engineer, researcher, inventor, author and scientist, of Dutch ancestry. As a pioneer of modern control theory and electronic telecommunications he revolutionized both the content and methodology of his chosen fields of research. His synergy with Claude Shannon, the father of information theory, laid the foundations for the technological convergence of the information age.
Hendrik Wade Bode, (see enlargement on left), at the May 26, 1958 meeting of the Special Committee on Space Technology, (fourth from the left). Wernher von Braun is at the head of the table facing the camera
Control theory is a field of control engineering and applied mathematics that deals with the control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive the system to a desired state, while minimizing any delay, overshoot, or steady-state error and ensuring a level of control stability; often with the aim to achieve a degree of optimality.
Centrifugal governor in a Boulton & Watt engine of 1788
An electromechanical timer, normally used for open-loop control based purely on a timing sequence, with no feedback from the process
Example of a single industrial control loop; showing continuously modulated control of process flow.
