Analysis on the History of Innovations in Feedback Control Systems

Abstract

A survey conducted by In Tech Magazine includes J. Watt, J. Ziegler y N. Nichols among the 50 most influential individuals in the development of automatic control. H. Black, H. Nyquist y H. Bode are not included in such list. This paper discusses the contributions made by Watt –attaching a centrifugal governor to the steam machine–, Ziegler and Nichols –rules for PID tuning–, and Black, Nyquist and Bode –negative feedback amplifier and absolute stability criteria–. We conclude that the contributions of the three latter were more important because they enabled the design of systems that spread the use of automatic control systems and laid the groundwork for the ultimate formalization of classical control theory.