ABSTRACT
Many engineering systems have electrical, electronic, or electromechanical subsystems as important components, such as power supplies, motors, sensors, and controllers. This chapter introduces the fundamentals of electrical elements, which include resistors, inductors, and capacitors. It reviews two main physical laws, Kirchhoff’s voltage law and Kirchhoff’s current law and applies to develop mathematical models of electrical circuits. The coupling between electrical and mechanical subsystems is established and applied to motor modeling. Electrical systems, or electrical circuits, can usually be considered as interconnections of lumped elements, such as sources, resistors, inductors, and capacitors. Sources are active electrical elements, which can provide energy to the circuit and serve as the inputs. An active electrical element can be modeled as an ideal current source or an ideal voltage source.
