Article
Article
Cybernetics
Article By:
Bouldin, Donald W. Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Last reviewed:January 2020
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.175400
The study of communication and control within and between humans, machines, organizations, and society. This is a modern definition of the term cybernetics, which was first utilized by N. Wiener in 1948 to designate a broad subject area he defined as “control and communication in the animal and the machine.” A distinguishing feature of this broad field is the use of feedback information to adapt or steer the entity toward a goal. When this feedback signal is such as to cause changes in the structure or parameters of the system itself, it appears to be self-organizing. See also: Adaptive control
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