Title: Four generations of control theory development

Authors: Tai Yang

Addresses: Department of Engineering, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

Abstract: In our control community, in particular in our teaching, we often use the terms 'classical control theory' and 'modern control theory'. History moves forward. The word 'modern' here is not appropriate. Today's modern is future's classical. Nevertheless, behind the ambiguous words there are meaningful terms: 'transfer function based' for classical control, and 'state-space based' for modern control. Looking back and forward, and to give an overall overview, this short article presents an opinion that control system study up to date can be divided into four generations; namely: 1) transfer function based; 2) state-space based; 3) networked control systems; 4) control in the new AI era.

Keywords: control theory development; four generations; control in the new AI era.

DOI: 10.1504/IJMIC.2023.128765

International Journal of Modelling, Identification and Control, 2023 Vol.42 No.1, pp.1 - 3

Received: 28 Jan 2022
Accepted: 30 Jan 2022
Published online: 03 Feb 2023 *