Page 51 - Understanding Automotive Electronics

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2 THE SYSTEMS APPROACH TO CONTROL AND INSTRUMENTATION

The performance of any electronic system (analog or digital) is determined
by its various components—transistors, resistors, capacitors, sensors, actuators,
displays, and so forth—as well as by the system architecture or interconnections
of its components. For a digital electronic system, performance is further
determined by the computer program (software) that is running in the associated
computer. The system designer makes careful choices for the system structure as
well as for the parameter values (e.g., resistance or capacitance) to tailor the
specific system performance to the specifications of a given task.
Just as in the case of a hi-fi audio system, the fidelity of an automotive
electronic system to dynamically changing inputs is given by its frequency
response. Specifically, this is the response of the system to a standard input
called a sinusoid. The standard input is a smoothly varying periodic quantity as
illustrated by the graph in Figure 2.6.

Figure 2.6
Sinusoidal Signal

38 UNDERSTANDING AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRONICS