A Guide to Signals and Systems in Continuous Time

This textbook is a concise yet precise supplement to traditional books on Signals and Systems, focusing exclusively on the continuous-time case. Students can use this guide to review material, reinforce their understanding, and see how all the parts connect together in a uniform treatment focused on mathematical clarity. Readers learn the “what”, “why” and “how” about the ubiquitous Fourier and Laplace transforms encountered in the study of linear time-invariant systems in engineering: what are these transforms, why do we need them, and how do we use them? Readers will come away with an understanding of the gradual progression from time-domain analysis to frequency-domain and s-domain techniques for continuous-time linear time-invariant systems. This book reflects the author’s experience in teaching this material for over 25 years in sophomore- and junior-level required engineering courses and is ideal for undergraduate classes in electrical engineering.

Stéphane Lafortune was born in Montréal, Québec, Canada. He received the B.Eng degree from École Polytechnique de Montréal in 1980, the M.Eng degree from McGill University in 1982, and the Ph.D degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986, all in electrical engineering. Since September 1986, he has been with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he is a Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In March 2018, he was appointed as the N. Harris McClamroch Collegiate Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Lafortune is a Fellow of the IEEE (1999) and of the IFAC (2017). He received the Presidential Young Investigator Award from the U.S. National Science Foundation in 1990 and the Axelby Outstanding Paper Award from the Control Systems Society of the IEEE in 1994 (for a paper co-authored with S.-L. Chung and F. Lin) and in 2001 (for a paper co-authored with G. Barrett). Lafortune's research interests are in discrete event systems andinclude multiple problem domains: modeling, diagnosis, control, optimization, and applications to computer and software systems. He co-authored, with C. Cassandras, the textbook “Introduction to Discrete Event Systems” (Third Edition, Springer, 2021).