A block diagram is a pictorial representation of the cause and effect relationship between the input and output of a physical system. A block diagram provides a means to easily identify the functional relationships among the various components of a control system.
The simplest form of a block diagram is the block and arrows diagram. It consists of a single block with one input and one output (Figure 5A). The block normally contains the name of the element (Figure 5B) or the symbol of a mathematical operation (Figure 5C) to be performed on the input to obtain the desired output. Arrows identify the direction of information or signal
flow.
Although blocks are used to identify many types of mathematical operations, operations of addition and subtraction are represented by a circle, called a summing point. As shown in Figure 6, a summing point may have one or several inputs. Each input has its own appropriate plus or minus sign. A summing point has only one output and is equal to the algebraic sum of the inputs.
A takeoff point is used to allow a signal to be used by more than one block or summing point (Figure 7).
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