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Control Systems Made Simple | Beginner's Guide (Udemy.com)

Learn fundamentals of Mechanical & electrical system modeling, simulation and control with this unique practical course!

4.6
1,412 reviews

Created by: Prof. Ryan Ahmed, PhD, MBA

Last updated September 2018

Our take

Based on the ratings of 1,412 students, a sample of their written reviews and the syllabus, as the course stood in September 2018. No course pays to be reviewed.

Ryan Ahmed's course is a short, Simulink-first introduction to system modeling and control. It runs about 7.5 hours over 40 lectures in three parts: mechanical systems with free body diagrams and Laplace transfer functions, electrical systems including DC motors and batteries, then PID control and tuning. Close to 10,000 students have enrolled. It was last updated in 2018, and one reviewer notes the instructor uses MATLAB 2014, so menus and blocks look different in newer versions. The listing says no prior knowledge is needed.

Most of the 1,412 ratings are 4 or 5 stars, and the praise is steady. Reviewers call the explanations clear and easy to follow, and they like how much model building there is. The complaints are consistent too. One says every topic is brushed over without real depth, and another had to study the math on their own because some explanations felt vague. Others wanted more s-plane intuition, clearer naming of variables, and a battery section that goes further. One asked for free tools like Scilab or Octave.

Treat it as a gentle first pass, not a full control theory class. For a student who wants to watch a model get built and a PID loop get tuned in Simulink, the pace is comfortable. If you need rigor on stability or frequency response, or want to run anything on real hardware, the syllabus does not go there. Anyone without a MATLAB license should sort that out before buying, since one reviewer found the MathWorks licensing hard to untangle.

Best forEngineering students who want a hands-on first pass at Simulink modeling and PID control, with MATLAB already available.
Skip it ifYou want real depth on control theory, s-plane analysis, or hardware projects like Arduino.

Pros

  • Clear, easy-to-follow teaching that reviewers repeatedly praise
  • Lots of hands-on Simulink model building across mechanical, electrical and PID topics
  • Includes DC motor and battery models, and one reviewer called the battery modelling amazing
  • Short at about 7.5 hours, with no prior knowledge required

Cons

  • Built on MATLAB 2014 and last updated in 2018, so newer Simulink blocks look different
  • Breadth over depth: reviewers say the math and s-plane intuition are thin
  • Needs a MATLAB license, and one reviewer found the MathWorks licensing confusing
Concise and straightforward, sometimes basic, but very useful to me, mainly because nor even all topics are familiar to me.
Fernando Teixeira, a student

Marked all levels, but it suits early engineering students best, since the math is only lightly explained.

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What you will learn

  • Develop mathematical models for mechanical and electrical systems
  • Develop control strategies to achieve desired system response
  • Apply Proportional Integral Derivative (PID) controllers to real world applications
  • Implement PID Control strategies in Simulink
  • Tune controller parameters for optimal system performance
  • Draw free body diagrams and analyze forces acting on any system
  • Develop transfer functions to describe the behavior of mechanical and electrical systems
  • Analyze electrical circuits using Kirchhoff's circuit law
  • Develop mathematical models for Battery systems and DC motors
  • Simulate Battery Systems and DC motors in MATLAB/Simulink

Course content

4 sections · 40 lectures · 7.5 hours of video 5 assignments

  1. 1Introduction and Welcome Message 1 free preview1 lecture · 1 min
  2. 2Simulation of Mechanical Systems 2 free previews10 lectures · 2 quizzes · 2.2 hours
  3. 3Simulation of Electrical Systems 2 free previews16 lectures · 1 quiz · 3.7 hours
  4. 4Control Systems Fundamentals13 lectures · 2 quizzes · 1.5 hours

Who it is for

The instructor says it suits

  • For students who want to learn system modeling and control systems fundamentals
  • For people who want to learn Electrical and Mechanical system simulation fundamentals
  • For people who want to learn how to develop control algorithms in MATLAB and Simulink
  • For people who want to learn System-level modeling Fundamentals and develop their own Models in MATLAB/Simulink.
  • For Complete Programming Beginners.

What you need before you start

  • No prior Experience or knowledge is required

How it compares

Against the other 335 rated Udemy courses in Engineering on CourseDuck:

  • Rating4.6 out of 5higher than 74% of them
  • Reviews1,412#63 of 336 by number of reviews
  • Length7.5 hourslonger than 66% of them
  • Last updatedSeptember 2018earlier than 90% of them

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Course Description

This course covers the basics of modeling, simulations and control of mechanical and electrical systems. The course is divided into 3 main sections:

1. Mechanical systems modeling, 

2. Electrical systems modeling

3. Control systems design


Section #1: Mechanical System Modeling 

The section covers the basics of how to derive mathematical models from scratch, draw free body diagrams, apply Newton’s laws of motion and simulate mechanical systems using MATLAB/Simulink. This section also covers Laplace domains, transfer function development, and system simulations using several inputs such as impulse and step inputs. 

Section #2: Electrical System Modeling

This section covers electrical system modeling fundamentals. It covers how to mathematically model basic elements such as capacitors, resistors and inductors, how to apply Kirchoff’s circuit law to solve various electrical circuit. The section also covers advanced topics such as how to model DC motors, and batteries in MATLAB/Simulink environment.

Section #3: Control systems fundamentals/Design 

This section includes the basics of control system and the steps required to build any control system. This section covers one of the most famous controllers known as PID or Proportional Integral Derivative controller. The section includes basics of how to perform block diagram model reduction and how to assess dynamic system performance. Furthermore, the section covers how to perform PID tuning to achieve the best desired system performance.
Read More All Levels All Levels product length iconTime: 7.5h

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Instructor Details

Prof. Ryan Ahmed, PhD, MBA

I'm Dr. Ryan Ahmed, professor, engineer, and founder of Stemplicity, where we help people get past the hype and actually build things with AI, Agentic AI, Cloud, and Data Science.

Over the past 10 years, I've taught 1 million learners across 160 countries — 700,000+ enrolled in my Udemy courses, 260,000+ subscribers on the "Prof. Ryan Ahmed" YouTube channel, and 120,000+ on Coursera. I also run corporate AI training for teams at HSBC, RBC, Discover, and Barclays across the US, Canada, and the UK. I held leadership roles at GM, Samsung, and Stellantis in Canada and the U.S., working on electric and autonomous vehicle technologies.

I hold a MASc, PhD, and MBA from McMaster University. I’m also a licensed Professional Engineer and a Stanford-certified program manager with over 60+ published research papers in AI and battery systems.

But credentials are the least interesting part. Here's what I actually believe: "AI is the biggest opportunity of our lifetime", and most people are sitting it out because they think they need to code or have a PhD. You don't. If you're willing to show up and try, I'll help you get good at this.

Read More

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Reviews

4.6

1,412 ratings on Udemy

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By Francisco Javier Ramírez Ruiz on 4/8/2023

El curso es ameno y bien explicado, aunque es a nivel básico y me gustaría que profundizará un poco más el algunos temas y tuviera la opción de herramientas libres de control con Scilab u Octave, para quien no tiene la licencia de Matlab.

By Moreshwar Salpekar on 10/1/2022

On the positive side, the course has lot of practical work, and the instructor provides a clear explanation which makes learning easier and better. The captions are good but can be made better What I would have loved as addition: 1. Use of more recent versions of Matlab. The instructor uses 2014 and I used 2020b. Though blocks are changed, there are changes 2. I would have loved more details on Battery as I make models on my own 3. I would have loved combination of battery with DC motor given that the instructor has worked and works in EVs and autonomous vehicles but that may be me only. 4. The equation used in Lecture 24 is same as that used in lecture 20 and 21. i expected practical for lecture 23. Maybe I am missing the link.

By Fernando Teixeira on 11/1/2020

Concise and straightforward, sometimes basic, but very useful to me, mainly because nor even all topics are familiar to me. Recommended to all who are interested in Matlab. Thanks professor Ahmed!

By Zuhair Omar on 4/2/2020

Good course for understanding basic of Models and how to simulate using MATLAB & Simulink, Also it covers basic explanation of PID controllers.

By Amandeep kaur on 3/27/2020

Actually good course for beginners. Learnt numerous concept from it. However, MATLAB screen was blurr many times, therefore, it became difficult to note down the actual values of parameters.

By Saurabh Kumar on 3/21/2020

Very nice but requires some sort of technical explanation in the projects about how the equations are working and functioning. Apart from it, it's excellent.

By Sanya Gode on 2/23/2020

the course was very informative and the teaching method explanation assignments were amazing it helped me a lot to enhance my knowledge. resources are very helpful.thank you

By Mohammed zubair ahmed on 2/4/2020

It was quite a recap for what I had already studied n my course curriculum, the instructor was better than my university professor to explain how to actually use the MATLAB tool for theoretical understandings

By Ayodeji Rotibi on 7/10/2019

This is my best course yet! My main interest is to understand Control System without the complexity associated with mathematics. I guess i will refer back to this course several times in the next few months.

By Stew JW on 7/29/2018

Useful course for someone like me who doesn't come from an engineering degree background and who is largely self taught on the topics covered. The best part for me was the the use Simulink to test these mathematical models. I dropped a star since the resources are missing from the course. There was also a slight problem for those of us who only have Matlab with Simulink since the impulse function is only present in the Simulink DSP module, which I don't have.

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Overall Score : 92 / 100

Control Systems Made Simple | Beginner's Guide
$13.99Original price $64.9978% off
Visit course on Udemy Write a review
  • Video Duration: icon 7.5h
  • Price: $13.99
  • Provider: icon Udemy
  • Updated: icon September 2018
  • Level: All Levels All Levels
  • Language: icon English
  • Certificate: icon Yes
  • Lectures:40 in 4 sections
  • Students:9,986
  • Subtitles:4 languages
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