Switching-Type Servosystems in an Elementary Undergraduate Curriculum

The paper discusses how the concept of switchingtype servosystems can be introduced into an undergraduate curriculum without requiring a more advanced background in mathematics on the part of the student than is ordinarily expected. A differential equation approach is used to study the response of a second-order system which is excited with a step function input. The system starts to respond in a linear mode of operation with an over-all positive feedback and switches into a different linear mode with an over-all negative feedback at a predetermined instant. The system is designed so as to respond with no overshoot. The response time is shorter than that of a conventional critically-damped linear negative feedback system with the same major physical components. The results of a rigorous study by means of a phase-space representation are also given.