From the back page This book is drastically different from other control books. It abandons conventional approaches to concentrate on explaining and illustrating the concepts that are at the heart of control theory. It attempts to explain why the obvious is so obvious and seeks to develop a robust understanding of the underlying principles around which control theory is built. This simple framework is studded with reference to more detailed treatments and with interludes that are intended to inform and entertain. Overall this book intended as a companion on the journey through control theory and although the early chapters concentrate on simple ideas such as feedback and stability, later chapters deal with more advanced topics such as optimisation, distributed parameter systems and Kalman Filtering.