This book is intended to accompany a course of study in under-graduate and graduate engineering. As has beenmentioned previously, this book is not focused on any particular discipline within engineering, however any personwho wants to make use of this material should have some basic background in the Laplace transform (if not othertransforms), calculus, etc. The material in this book may be used to accompany several semesters of study,depending on the program of your particular college or university. The study of control systems is generally a topicthat is reserved for students in their 3rd or 4th year of a 4 year undergraduate program, because it requires so muchprevious information. Some of the more advanced topics may not be covered until later in a graduate program.Many colleges and universities only offer one or two classes specifically about control systems at the undergraduatelevel. Some universities, however, do offer more than that, depending on how the material is broken up, and howmuch depth that is to be covered. Also, many institutions will offer a handful of graduate-level courses on thesubject.

This book will attempt to cover the topic of control systems from both a graduate and undergraduate level,with the advanced topics built on the basic topics in a way that is intuitive. As such, students should be able to beginreading this book in any place that seems an appropriate starting point, and should be able to finish reading wherefurther information is no longer needed.