Examples of mechanical and electrical systems

You are surely familiar with many of these signals and systems and have probably analyzed them as well, but in isolation . For instance, you must have studied accelerating masses in a mechanics course (see Fig (a)), and capacitances in an electrostatic course (see Fig (b)), separately.

Fig (a)

Fig (b)

As you can see, there is a similarity in the way the input signal is related to the output signal. These similarities will interest us in this course as we may be able to make inferences common to both these systems from these similarities.

We will develop very general tools and techniques of analyzing systems, independent of the actual context of their use. Our approach in this course would be to define certain properties of signals and systems (inspired of course by properties real-life examples we have), and then link these properties to consequences. These "links" can then be used directly in connection with a large variety of systems: electrical, mechanical, chemical, biological… knowing only how the input and output signal are related! Thus, our focus when dealing with signals and systems will be on the relationship between the input and output signal and not really on the internals of the system.