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The material and information contained on this website is for general information purposes only. ISA blog posts may be authored by ISA staff and guest authors from the automation community. Views and opinions expressed by a guest author are solely their own, and do not necessarily represent those of ISA. Posts made by guest authors have been subject to peer review.

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AutoQuiz: How to Calculate the Transfer Function

AutoQuiz is edited by Joel Don, ISA's social media community manager.

Today's automation industry quiz question comes from the ISA Certified Automation Professional certification program. ISA CAP certification provides a non-biased, third-party, objective assessment and confirmation of an automation professional's skills. The CAP exam is focused on direction, definition, design, development/application, deployment, documentation, and support of systems, software, and equipment used in control systems, manufacturing information systems, systems integration, and operational consulting. Click this link for information about the CAP program. The following question comes from the CAP study guide, Performance Domain I, Feasibility Study: Identify, scope, and justify the automation project.

Given the following diagram, what is the transfer function for C(s)/R(s)?

 

The numerator is the product of the transfer functions between the input and output, which are "R" and "C," respectively in this case. The denominator is one plus the product of all the transfer functions.

A transfer function is a mathematical representation of the relationship between the input and output of a system. In control engineering and control theory, one derives the transfer function using the Laplace transform.

The transfer function was the primary tool used in classical control engineering. However, it has proven to be unwieldy for the analysis of multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) systems

The correct answer is A.

Reference: George Ellis; Control System Design Guide.

 

Joel Don
Joel Don
Joel Don is an independent content marketing, social media and public relations consultant. Prior to his work in marketing and PR, Joel served as an editor for regional newspapers and national magazines throughout the U.S. He earned a master's degree from the Medill School at Northwestern University with a focus on science, engineering and biomedical marketing communications, and a bachelor of science degree from UC San Diego.

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