Electronic Design Automation Books

Most texts on industrial control are long on theory and short on practice. This book is a rare gem that presents the theory (without overloading you on details) and then explains how to actually use the theory in practice. (One note: the practical applications are focused on electric motor control, which is the author's background.) If I had to have only one book on controls in my library, this would be the one.

This is a really good book that simplified control system for the real world. Most text spend too much time on theory and analysis and end the discussion with a bunch of equations and graphs without explaining how to implement the design. This book covers both analog and digital control, and lets you download a software from the author's web site. This software, ModelQ, lets you play with various parameters so you can see how the system behaves when it is not optimized.

One drawback with the book is it only covers PID control and its variants, but doesn't cover state-space control. While state-space control may be considered "overkill" by many control engineers, state-space is used in industry. The decision to use state-space is often not in the hands of individual engineers, so it may not be an option to ignore state-space. It would be nice if Mr. Ellis could cover state-space in his next edition of the book.

I had three main reasons for buying this book:
1. To bridge the gap between the control theory from school and the systems that I now design and build
2. To gain insight on how to improve the performance and reliability of real motion systems
3. To find ways to apply advanced techniques to help meet challenging performance requirements

I got all of this and more from this book. The topics covered clearly and concisely in this book span three courses I took at Cal Poly SLO: basic controls, digital controls, and modern/advanced control theory. Mr. Ellis does a great job of quickly introducing these topics and getting straight to the practical implications.

The free software and examples work well to illustrate his points quickly and easily while helping to commit the insights to memory. I also hope to use it as a training tool for our techs.

I highly recommend this book to anyone working with control systems, especially grad students and people getting started in the field. I look forward to reading his book on observers.

The author attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and does a good job at it. Familiarity with control concepts will help one to get more out of the book, because the book focuses more on the practical aspects. The explanations in some of the sections can definitely be more complete, and thus I have to give it only a 4 star rating. Overall it is a good book.

Ellis has made a fantastic book on PID and similar control loops. He takes a very different tact than most controls books -- he writes with a voice similar to a handbook, but delivers enough content to compete with more traditional textbook-style controls books. It is light on the math in comparison, but I don't find myself wanting for more math.

I do a lot of controls design, consulting, and teaching. I recommend this book often and find that people that buy it uniformly track me down and thank me for the recommendation. I can't think of much higher praise for this book.

This is a great book on practical, robust, multivariable control. It covers the basic control theory, analysis, limitations and design for robust SISO and MIMO systems. The theory is reinforced with computational examples throughout the text.

This is a very advanced book and requires a strong background, especially in matrix analysis. I would recommend reading other text books before tackling this one. I still have not finished this book because I am reading around the subject before taking on the more advanced chapters, however I think that the book is excellent and if you can understand the techniques then the book is worth having.

This is a very comprehensive book on multivariable control, particularly chapters 6, 7, 8 and 9 wich are very useful to people who want to understand robustness and are interested in studying these topics by themselves. It was of great help to me.

The item was delivered on time and was what I asked for.

This is a excellent book for graduate student working in Control. It starts of with concepts in control and gradually goes into the details of multivariable control. Presentation on $\mu$ is clear and concise. I really liked the material on decentralzed control and control structure selection. Prof. Siguard Skogestad and Prof. Ian Postlethwaite did a excellent job. However, I wish there were more problems at the end of each chapter focussing on the research issues.

I found this to be an excellent introduction to how to build a fully functional, autonomous robot. This book covers everything you need to build robots using LEGO Technics (think LEGO blocks plus gears, motors, etc.) and a Handyboard, a robot brain developed to get the hard digital electronics out of the way so you can concentrate on putting together a good design with motors and sensors and software intelligence.

As someone looking for how to break into robotics without first getting bachelors in Electrical Engineering or Mechanical Engineering, this book was for me. I got the basics of the two topics covered and was able to dive right into the interesting "what can I do with my robot" scenarios.

This book also goes into some detail on inexpensive sensor components out in the electronics market and how to use them in robots. I found this to be a great source of ideas and instructions even when not creating robots using the Handyboard brain.

For those looking to dabble, be aware that this is a book best used in conjunction with real, live robot parts. (...)

This book presents an introduction to various aspects of robot building and planning. It is written as an undergraduate textbook, and contains numerous exercises throughout the text. The book assumes that students and other readers will have access to Handyboards and LEGO Technic equipment, as well as a desktop PC and hobbyist-level soldering equipment. The book walks the reader through analyzing a Handyboard, how to use it, how to build custom sensors and motors, and how to write programs in assembly language. All of this information would be very useful to first-year engineering students as it would help them put theory from many of their other classes into practice. Nevertheless, most of the tasks and programs described in the book could actually be built with a standard LEGO RCX brick. On the other hand, a person who masters the material in this book would be able to take advantage of the extra sensors and motors that the Handyboard supports and build far more sophisticated robots than would be possible with LEGO Mindstorms equipment. Anyone who builds robots using LEGO equipment, whether with a Handyboard or an RCX, will find information in this book about Braitenberg vehicles, LEGO design, control theory, and robotics contests quite useful. The introduction to Assembly language in Appendix A is also presented in an easily accessible style.

I just finished participating in the MIT 6.270 Autonomous Robot Competition. This book really pulls together everything you need to understand how to build a robot from Lego parts, and interface it to the real world using a variety of sensors and actuators (aka motors). There is so much to be learned by actually BUILDING a robot - this is a great book to help you dig into your own project. You can order the same hardware and software used in the MIT class off the internet as well.

The basic content of this book is excellent. It provides a readily accessible introduction to the principles of engineering. This book could easily be used as the text for a first year course in a unified engineering curriculum including Computer Science. The one flaw with this book is that it appears to have been rushed out by the publisher. Many of the page references are to the wrong pages and some of the pictures are rather blurry. Finally, the instructions for creating and downloading ICB files to incorporate assembly language modules for interrupt side programming and similar purposes needs to be reworked in a future edition. I hope that a future edition will also have a chapter on electrical design and construction techniques to compliment the chapter on mechanical techniques. I also look forward to a third chapter on sensing and possibly a second chapter on control theory. Regardless, this is overall an excellent book and should be acquired by anyone interested in small robots.

After 12 years of running an engineering club, I finally found a helpful book. I work with students from 6th to 12th grades. My 8th and 9th graders have no problem following this book. As a matter of fact I can't keep it on my desk. It is frequently either checked out or on the floor with the "builder". Yes, it is a freshman college book but my kids seem to have no problems reading it. My students participate in BEST, FIRST and Botball.

I love this book. The writing style is easy to understand, and carries the reader forward in a natural progression. It's a book that can be read straight through. It has great tutorials on VBScript and SQL (although I wanted more on SQL), and a lot of friendly ASP tutorials. Definitely a great book for the library. It's hard to find everything you need to develop a web application in one book, which is why I give this one 5 stars. I can get quick answers, or read through for more complete understanding. I have a lot of ASP books, but this is my favorite due to its completeness and easy, friendly writing style. I love Kris Jamsa books, and now I'm adding Rob Francis books to my Must Have list.

I was very intimidated about moving to ASP.NET. This book's seven lessons on ASP.NET got me up and running the same day! Very easy to understand and follows -- explains the differences you must know to get started.

This is by far the easiest book to understand that I have found for Active Server Pages -- my hats off to Rob Francis (I just bought his Visual Basic book -- I hope it is as good).

I have been trying to use PHP -- Francis makes ASP very easy to understand and shows how to integrate key objects to perform complex tasks. PHP even makes more sense now ... but I am going to stick with ASP.

I am not using ASP.NET yet, so I can't comment on that part of the book.

The ASP material is very good and very easy.

I had never created an active server page before. My Web site had over a dozen after my first weekend with the book. The lessons make the process very easy!

This is well written book that easy to understand for knowing basic algorithms and design techniques for VLSI design. Authors have presented the material in formal yet simple language that makes it a god book for senior undergraduates and starters in VLSI CAD.

A nice book, infact one of the best in the field, they give good review of the available research in the area. Good for undergraduate as well as post graduates. When you read it you feel as if the author was standing and explaining the material. Good work Sait !!

Since this book was published in 1997, a lot has happend in the area of physical design automation--but this is still a remarkably good text, especially for students and beginners. This because not only is it exceedingly clearly written, it concentraits on classic techniques which form the foundation for techniques still used today.

What is urgently needed is a bang-up-to-date text on this subject which contains materials for the more advanced user--not just for students, but also for old salts like myself who have been working in the trenches for 10 years! If such a text were to be written by these authors, I'm sure it would be a classic.

Sadly, EDA industry is a very small and shrinking industry, and a book like this is HARD to write, because you have to be an expert in so many fields. So this book is probably as good as we can reasonably expect to see anytime soon.

I have read most of the book and implemented most of the propsed algorithms. It was easy to understend. The authors simplified much of the notations that is used by the oirignal writers of the algorithms. It opens the area for any one intersted in those topics to continue research with an open mind about what to choose and how.

I've been a technical communicator for 17 years, and bought this book when it first came out. With the advent first of electronic publishing, where everyone had to know something about layout and design, and next with the Internet explosion where even your dog's vet has a website, poorly designed or not, and now, the advent of XML, which will further drive the art of communication into the hands of the unskilled, this book is a gem. It is still as applicable now as it was then, and easily applies to electronic style guidelines as well as to print.

If you are at all interested in how people learn, how they consume information, what works in layout (electronic or print) and what does not, read this book. It should be mandatory reading for everyone who works in the 'knowledge industry', from tech writers to webmasters to information architects.

Desktop publishing has raised the bar on professional documentation. Consultants and other professionals need to be able to turn out volumes of reports, requirements documents, plans, and a variety of other professional documentation. It is no longer good enough that these materials are neatly typed on the page. Reports need to have an attractive, professional look to them.

The Xerox Style Guide provides a full range of advice on layout, style, and correct usage. I found the layout portions helpful in achieving page layout that looks highly professional and improves the comprehension of the reader.

The advice on writing clear is also helpful, and more concise than many other style guides.

An impressive work which has aged well. The design notes and example it sets transcend the print medium. This is the Platonic ideal of standards manuals.

Apenas he empezado a leer los primeros capítulos de este libro, y he encontrado que su contenido es de altísima calidad y bastante claro de entender.

Se lo recomiendo a quien quiera tener un conocimiento más profundo en lo que son y cómo funcionan los distintos buses de campo más importantes.

For years I've listened to talk about the wonders of fieldbus. Claims for this technology ranged from "less wire and maintenance" to "world peace and prosperity"! It's now such a relief to have an unbiased book that explains in simple terms some of the most common fieldbus technologies. Hopefully, this information, combined with the growing availability of fieldbus products, will make it possible for me to improve the control system in my plant.

Hello.

This book is one of the best I've seen and read so far.

I have several books on robot building (Gordon, Miles, Cook, Williams, Jones, Groover, Clark, Iovine, etc) and this book has captured every aspect that I was looking for.

The author explains the matter step by step througly thus giving the reader the sense that HE KNOWS what he's talking about (very important).

The other book similar to this one is "INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS: TECHNOLOGY, PROGRAMMING, AND APPLICATIONS", though, a bit old (1986), has mathematical analisys and good examples overall.

But this book (Mobile Robotic Car Design) excels on the analisys part. And best of all, it introduces the reader to mathematical information that one CAN understand, using MATLAB.

The book is divided in two parts:

Part 1
Hardware Implementation.- This is dedicated on how to make the robotic car, the hardware,programming (PIC and DSP) and several techinques that one would see on other robo building books.

Part 2
Theory of mobile robots.- This is where the interesting part begins. The math and how it can be used in our favor.

The book is worth the money IF you're into every detail of design. It has good information if you're only triying to make a robot but it would definitely be TOO MUCH for many (the robot DNA series would do).

This book is recommended for engineers and hobbyist as stated on a review, but mostly for engineers.

On another note:
Jones book, "Robot programming", is a good book for people that already have a robotic car, it's a good companion for this book.

While reading the book, I found it to be understandable and easy to follow. The diagrams and step-by-step process was very helpful in understanding the Mobile Robotic Car Design. I would highly recommend this book to people like hobbyists and engineers who would like a well designed platform to test their vehicle control experiments, obstacle avoidance, or anything else your imagination can come up with.

Great mix of robots in this book--some "standard" variations on familiar prototypes (using UBS parts) and some pretty out there ones as well that I would have never thought of. Excellent book. I've seen the RIS one that came before this but didn't buy it--I'm going to go back and get it now.

I want to know more about it