Missile Guidance
My (Mike McCann) experience started with missile guidance control system dynamics and simulation on analog computers as an apprentice engineer in the aerospace industry.

University Research in Control
That got me interested in control and dynamics and given the opportunity, as the result of a scholarship awarded by London University, I did a doctoral thesis ( at Imperial College London) on the control of distributed parameter systems. I was invited to join the faculty at Case Institute, Cleveland Ohio (now CRWU) and there further honed the formal and mathematical skills. During those years, I was teaching control systems design to graduate and undergraduate students. It also provided the opportunity to act as consultant to major US firms who sponsored the industrial systems research programme.

Industrial and Consulting Experience
Industrial experience in the chemical industry and elsewhere has included topics such as

• glass making processes involving distributed heat transfer and indexing machines,
• polymer batch processes and stirred tank reactors,
• production fed batch fermentation systems for anti-biotics,
• simulation methods for distillation dynamics,
• vacuum web coating processes,
• Cooling water regulation of disolved solids and fouling.

Understanding process dynamics
To be able to design control systems, it is necessary to know the intrinsic dynamic behaviour of the process. So, in most of these applications, the theme has been the explanation of physical phenomena by quantified analysis, backed up by experimentation and leading to design methods and modifications to solve problems for clients.

Simulation Tools
As a result of this experience, I've become an expert in the simulation and modelling of physical phenomena, particularly their dynamic behaviour. At first, the tool of choice was an analogue computer. Then digital simulation languages began to take over as computing power put the solution of sets of ordinary differential equations in easy reach. Analytical frequency domain methods have always been an important starting point to provide early insight into problems and latterly as computational tools have improved, software systems like MATHCAD (from Mathsoft, Cambridge MA) which can handle both the frequency domain (using Fast Fourier transforms. See the Transmission Line example.) and time domain numerical integration attacks have become more and more useful, while providing excellent documentation for clients.
Nevertheless, there are still advantages in being able to "play" with simulations as we once did with analogue computers. So, I've programmed some simple simulation tools, free for you to download, that exhibit that same sort of interactive, hands-on, hot-wirable behaviour for continuous and discrete event systems.

Dr Mike McCann is a member of the IEEE, a Fellow of the IEE and a Chartered Engineer. You can see a Resume/CV and a list of publications on this website.

If you have a problem in control system design and process intrumentation, where the first task is to understand the process (which means pretty well all of them!), then contact McCann. McCann's clients are widespread, but being based in the eastern USA, with strong links to the UK, places in PA, NY, NJ, MD, VA, DE are very easy to reach.