I originally wrote this as a final project for an undergraduate technical writing class I took at University of California, Santa Cruz in Spring 2017 (CMPE 185). It is intended as a digest of graduate-level control theory aimed at veteran FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) students who know algebra and a bit of physics. As I learned the subject of control theory, I found that it wasn't particularly difficult, but very few resources exist outside of academia for learning it. This book is intended to rectify that situation and lower the barrier to entry to the field.
This book reads a lot like a reference manual on control theory and related tools. It teaches the reader how to start designing and implementing control systems for practical systems with an emphasis on pragmatism rather than theory. While the theory is mathematically elegant at times and helps inform what is going on, one shouldn't lose sight of how it behaves when applied to real systems.
A PDF version is available at https://controls-in-frc.link (full link: https://file.tavsys.net/control/controls-engineering-in-frc.pdf).
As per this work's license, you may print copies yourself for any purpose under the following terms:
Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
ShareAlike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.
Printing a copy of the PDF as-is satisfies the license requirements. You'll want to use the printer version of the PDF here instead of the one linked above because the latter is compressed for electronic viewing.
Example Python scripts can be obtained from frccontrol's Git repository at https://github.com/calcmogul/frccontrol/tree/main/examples. Furthermore, all scripts in the code directory are runnable by the user. They require Python 3.5+ and frccontrol. frccontrol can be installed with the following command.
pip3 install --user frccontrol
Some also use bookutil, a Python package containing common utilities for this
book. That can be installed by running pip3 install --user -e bookutil from
the root of this Git repository.
The scripts can be run as follows:
./elevator.py
Some Linux platforms use tk as a backend for matplotlib, so that may need to be installed to see the plots.
After installing the dependencies, just run make. It will produce a PDF named
controls-engineering-in-frc.pdf.
To compile the book, the following packages are required.
These can be installed via make setup_archlinux.
- pacman packages (via "sudo pacman -Sy")
- base-devel (for
maketo run the makefile) - biber (for generating bibliography)
- clang (for clang-format to format C++ code snippets)
- cmake (for building C++ plot generators)
- imagemagick (to compress JPEGs)
- inkscape (to convert SVGs to PDFs)
- perl-clone (for Clone.pm needed by biber)
- python >= 3.6 (for generating plots)
- python-black (to format Python source code)
- python-pip (for installing required Python packages)
- python-pylint (for Python linting)
- python-requests (for .tex HTTP link checker)
- python-wheel (for "setup.py bdist_wheel")
- texlive-bibtexextra (for additional BibTeX styles and bibliography databases)
- texlive-core (for latexmk and xelatex)
- texlive-latexextra (for bibtex and makeglossaries)
- base-devel (for
These can be installed via make setup_ubuntu.
- apt packages (via "sudo apt install")
- biber (for generating bibliography)
- build-essential (for
maketo run the makefile) - cm-super (for type1ec.sty)
- clang-format (to format C++ code snippets)
- cmake (for building C++ plot generators)
- dvipng (to convert DVIs to PNGs)
- imagemagick (to compress JPEGs)
- inkscape (to convert SVGs to PDFs)
- latexmk
- python3 >= 3.6 (for generating plots)
- python3-pip (for installing required Python packages)
- python3-requests (for .tex HTTP link checker)
- python3-setuptools (for dependencies of setup.py)
- python3-wheel (for "setup.py bdist_wheel")
- texlive-base (for latexmk)
- texlive-bibtex-extra (for additional BibTeX styles and bibliography databases)
- texlive-generic-extra (for miscellaneous LaTeX .sty files)
- texlive-latex-extra (for bibtex and makeglossaries)
- texlive-xetex (for xelatex)
- Python packages (via "pip3 install --user")
- black (to format Python source code)
- pylint (for Python linting)
These can be installed via make setup_macos.
- brew packages (via "brew install")
- basictex (for xelatex)
- clang-format (to format C++ code snippets)
- cmake (for building C++ plot generators)
- imagemagick (to compress JPEGs)
- inkscape (to convert SVGs to PDFs)
- python@3.10 (for generating plots)
- Python packages (via "pip3 install --user")
- black (to format Python source code)
- pylint (for Python linting)
- tlmgr packages (via "sudo tlmgr install")
- biber (for generating bibliography)
- biblatex (for generating bibliography)
- cm-super (for type1ec.sty)
- csquotes (used by textcomp package)
- datatool (used by xfor package)
- enumitem (customize lists)
- footmisc (used by gensymb)
- gensymb
- glossaries (for makeglossaries command)
- glossaries-english (english language module for glossaries package)
- imakeidx (used by listings package)
- latexmk
- mdframed (for creating the theorem, definition, exercise, and corollary boxes)
- mfirstuc (used by glossaries package)
- needspace (used by zref package)
- placeins (used by subcaption package)
- titlesec (for titletoc package)
- tracklang (used by glossaries package)
- type1cm (for type1cm.sty)
- was (for gensymb package)
- xfor (used by textcase package)
- zref (used by mdframed package)
These packages are installed via pip3 (e.g., pip3 install --user frccontrol).
- frccontrol (to provide FRC wrappers for scipy and generate plots and state-space results)
The book's build process automatically sets these up in a venv so they don't
have to be installed manually. Modifications to the Python package folders in
build will be reflected in any scripts which use the venv.
All LaTeX labels, including bibliography entries, should use underscores to
represent spaces between words instead of hyphens. Hyphens should only be used
where the character being written is already a hyphen. .tex file names should
use hyphens and .py file names should use underscores.
When including linebreaks in equations, insert the linebreak and a \qquad
before the next operator.
Glossary entries in glossary-entries.tex should be lexographically sorted by entry key. The entry key should be the same as the name. The words in the name should be lowercase, and the description should start with a capital letter and end with a period. The first sentence should be a fragment, but sentences after that, if applicable, should be complete.
Bibliography entries in
controls-engineering-in-frc.bib should be
sorted lexographically by label. Links to online videos should use the @misc
tag. Links to online static resources like PDFs should use the @online tag.
Book content should answer the question why something works the way it does and how and when to use it to solve problems.
Adhere to SI unit rules and style conventions.
See TODO.md.
This project, except for the software, is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. The software is released under the 3-clause BSD license.