Independent projects — infrastructure, robotics, technology surveys, and corporate research
← Learning guides

Control Engineering Primer: reading guide

PID, state-space, optimal control, path planning, and trajectory generation connected to robot and autonomous-vehicle implementation.

This is an editorially selected reading order. Begin at step 1 or go directly to the topic you need.

  1. Fundamentals · 24 min

    Control Engineering Primer: PID Control — Working Across Three Time Scales

    PID is not merely three gains. This primer connects its intuition and equations to sampling, saturation, anti-windup, tuning, safety, ROS 2, and real implementation checks.

  2. Hands-on · 6 min

    Experiment with PID in Python — gains, delay and saturation

    Reproduce how measurement delay, actuator limits and integral windup change PID tracking on the same second-order model.

  3. Fundamentals · 21 min

    Control Engineering Primer: State Observers and the Linear Kalman Filter

    Sensor readings are not the state itself. This primer explains observability, Kalman predict/update equations, covariance, numerical examples, control integration, robot implementation, and fault-safe behavior.

  4. Fundamentals · 20 min

    Control Engineering Primer: LQR — State Feedback From Explicit Priorities

    LQR derives state-feedback gains from a state-space model and a quadratic cost. This primer covers Riccati equations, observability, PID/MPC tradeoffs, robot implementation, numerical intuition, and safety.

  5. Fundamentals · 23 min

    Control Engineering Primer: Model Predictive Control — Acting Within Constraints

    Model Predictive Control predicts future behavior with a model, optimizes a constrained input sequence, applies only its first move, and repeats. This primer covers equations, tuning, safety, implementation, and current examples.

  6. Fundamentals · 22 min

    Control Engineering Primer: Path Planning — A*, Dijkstra, RRT, RRT*, and PRM

    Path planning is not drawing a shortest line. This primer compares grid and continuous-space algorithms while accounting for robot footprint, map uncertainty, computation, SLAM/Nav2 integration, and safety.

  7. Fundamentals · 19 min

    Control Engineering Primer: Trajectory Generation — Minimum Jerk, Quintics, and Trapezoidal Profiles

    A path says where to travel; a trajectory says when and with what velocity, acceleration, and jerk. This primer covers minimum-jerk, quintic, trapezoidal profiles, constraints, safety, and ROS 2 integration.

Search this field →