Control System

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What Does Control System Mean?

The term “control system” in IT is commonly used to refer to systems that control physical hardware processes on a control loop. A control system typically operates on an open-loop or closed-loop model.

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Techopedia Explains Control System

The terminology of control systems is confusing, because semantically, in the classical lexicon, a control system was any type of system that controls anything. In the analog age, it was used to refer to thermostats and other physical controllers.

Today, with the focus on digital technologies and state-of-the-art hardware, “control system” is a term used to refer to items like programmable logic controllers that control items like switches, light sensors and other items, many of which are used in a manufacturing or environmental control project. The control system can be thought of as part of the “physical” layers of an IT environment, and tied to the operational control plane rather than the network’s data plane.

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Margaret Rouse
Technology expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology expert

Margaret is an award-winning writer and educator known for her ability to explain complex technical topics to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles in the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret’s idea of ​​a fun day is to help IT and business professionals to learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.