Why do we bother with the root locus?

I’ve been taught the root locus twice and still find it to be more trouble than it’s worth.  For a simple gain I can use the Routh Array instead of the root locus.  The Routh Array allows me to determine the bounds of a stable gain faster than a root locus.

Technically, the root locus can be used to more than finding gains but you already have to have some idea of the controller form.  If I know the controller form then the pole placement instead of the root locus.

There’s no such thing as too many tools.  But I’ve never used the root locus and I wonder does anyone else?

The USA needs more engineers and scientists to continue to drive our economy and secure our country.  Our military’s dominance is obviously tied to our technology.  We couldn’t possibly match China man for man due to the shear number of Chinese available to fight.  Our economic dominance is also due to technology.  Technology allows us to have higher levels of productivity and innovation allows us to open up enitrely new markets.  But importing foreign engineers isn’t the answer.

A couple of quick definitions…  Foreign born engineer in this context means a person who was born and primarily raised in foreign country.  Native born engineer in this context means person who was primarily raised in the US.

I work in the Aerospace and Defense industry.  The reasons for wanting native born engineers are obvious.  The security risk posed by a native born engineer is generally considered to be less than a foreign born engineer all other things being equal.

I’ve got a BSME and MSEE and I attended 4 universities to get those degrees.  Most engineering programs are comprised of something like 30% foreign born students; my universities included.  Many of those students would go home if they could have the right kind of life style in their home country.  Many of them have begun going home as the economic conditions in China and India improve.  The money they generate with their brains stays in the country they live in.

We should always encourage the best and brightest to come here, live here, make us stronger.  I am also in favor of teaching engineering to any person from any country that has the drive, brains and money to come get that education.  However, most of the foreign engineers I met were no better or worse than the native born engineers. 

The better the economic conditions at home, the more likely a foreign born engineer is to return to their home country.  If they come here for the education and take that education back to their home country then they have primarily made their home country stronger not the USA.  I have no issue with this but I am primarily concerned with the strength of the USA.  As such, we, in the USA, should be focusing on graduating more native born engineers not recruiting foreign engineers.

I welcome anyone from any country to come and get educated in the USA.  I prefer those that get educated here stay here and contribute.  But I also believe that US efforts and money should be focused on getting more natives to graduate rather than on recruiting engineers from outside the USA.

I graduated with a BSME in 1997 and began to work in the Aerospace indsustry shortly after graduation.  Before graduating I worked for 3+ years on university space programs.  So I’ve been involved in the aerospace industry for about 13 years now.

Since 1997 I’ve been hearing talk in the media about the need for more engineers and scientists in this country.  After getting laid off for the second time in less than 2 years I began to realize that the talk in the news by CEOs and HR depts about the need for engineers and the reality of their actions didn’t line up.  I got laid off despite good reviews.  I got laid off despite more than enough work to go around.  I got laid off (with 100s of others) despite company profits in 9% or higher.

Why?  For that particular company it was the unreasonable demand of the CEO that profit grow by at least 15% year over year.  The company possessed an 85% market in a mature industry, where does 15% growth in profits come from?  Getting rid of employees.  But it was a game where they laid off people in Oct and hired just as many the following Jan or Feb.  Most of the time they were hiring the same people but into different positions where we usually had about 6 months of “getting up to speed” only to get laid off 9 months after being hired.

At the same time one company is laying off engineers another is asking Congress for more visas to allow foreign born engineers into the country.  Foreign born engineers work less - I’ve heard they work for about 75% of the native coutnerparts.  I’ll explain why this is a bad idea for the country in another post.

This is a blog for ControlTheoryPro.com. You can thank my wife for the blog, I had intended to create one eventually but she pushed me to do it sooner rather than later.

The plan for this blog is be useful for the controls engineers who visit ControlTheoryPro.com as well as the broader engineering community. I have ideas for blog posts on the defense industry, engineering education, and the “three kinds of stupid” that is ITAR. The State Dept. says it doesn’t interfere with people publishing academic or intellectual works. Nonsense, interference is the goal of the law. Oh well, I’ll save it for the log post.

The blog posting will include a lot more of my personality in them. They are more personal and my sense of sarcasm will show through.