  The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive range of design
techniques for the synthesis of the standard compensators (Lead and Lag
networks as well as PID controllers) that in the last twenty years have proved
to be of great educational value in a vast number of undergraduate and
postgraduate courses in Control throughout Italy, but that to-date remain
mostly confined within this country. These techniques hinge upon a set of
simple closed-form formulae for the computation of the parameters of the
controller as functions of the typical specifications introduced in Control
courses, i.e., the steady-state performance, the stability margins and the
crossover frequencies.
