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Is "Automatic control" a synonym to "Control theory"? I'd say so, which means this page maybe should simply redirect to Control theory.

If there really is a difference then I'd guess "Automatic control" is more applied/practical, while "Control theory" is more theoretical/general. Working a lot with theorems and formal matemathics would be Control theory, while building/programming a controller would be Autmatic control.

What's your opinion? I searched the web but found no statements about this. If we can find out, then the article may either explain the difference or be turned into a redirect (with Control theory mentioning the synonym). --Erikms (talk) 16:20, 20 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding has always been that automatic control and control theory are completely synonymous. As I understand a (the?) flagship publication venue is IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (http://control.bu.edu/ieee/) so the statement above that automatic control is somehow "more applied" doesn't seem to fit.Kristensson (talk) 13:57, 6 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Just judging by the content of Control theory and this article, I would agree that this article could be deleted and converted to a redirect. ManfromButtonwillow (talk) 04:45, 22 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This merger proposal again is a very fine example of high grade illiterate comment. A theory of something will never be the very same as the technical implementing of concepts derived from this theory. How could the task of automatic control collapse to something in control theory? Nobody wants to svae clarity, but everyone wants to enlarge the scope of lemmata. Please stand off stupid 'paper' saving merges. And try top read first about the subjects you want to merge.Wireless friend (talk) 18:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can we further clarify the difference/relationship between automatic control and automation? Because currently "automatic control" is given as a synonym for "automation" in the latter entry. Faff296 (talk) 00:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't the article mention driverless cars and pilotless aircraft? pgr94 (talk) 16:56, 10 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Suggest merge with automation, which actually has automatic control in its definition in the opening part of its lead (as pointed out a few years ago). This article is unloved and any attempt to revive it will result in duplication. Dougsim (talk) 20:26, 14 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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One thing has often been overlooked when teaching automatic control theory, which is - the definition of a 'process'. I don't think any text book tells a student exactly or clearly what a 'process' actually is. That is, what is it? What does it mean in terms of a control system? Wikipedia currently says - process: "series of interrelated tasks that, together, transform inputs into outputs". Should give some examples. Some text books have a spinning disk driven by a motor, and has the word 'a process' next to it. Totally confusing. There needs to be clear examples and explanations of what 'process' really means. KorgBoy (talk) 02:26, 27 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]