Control engineering or control systems engineering is an engineering
discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design
equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The
discipline of controls overlaps and is usually taught along with electrical
engineering and mechanical engineering at many institutions around the world.
The practice uses sensors and detectors to measure the output performance of
the process being controlled; these measurements are used to provide
corrective feedback helping to achieve the desired performance. Systems
designed to perform without requiring human input are called automatic control
systems (such as cruise control for regulating the speed of a car).