A Practical Approach to Dynamical Systems for Engineers takes the abstract mathematical concepts behind dynamical systems and applies them to real-world systems, such as a car traveling down the road, the ripples caused by throwing a pebble into a pond, and a clock pendulum swinging back and forth.

Many relevant topics are covered, including modeling systems using differential equations, transfer functions, state-space representation, Hamiltonian systems, stability and equilibrium, and nonlinear system characteristics with examples including chaos, bifurcation, and limit cycles.

In addition, MATLAB is used extensively to show how the analysis methods are applied to the examples. It is assumed readers will have an understanding of calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, and an interest in mechanical and electrical dynamical systems.