Definition of regulation - What it is, Meaning and Concept

Regulation is the action and effect of regulating (adjust or tidy up something, regulate the operation of a system , determine standards) The term is often used as a synonym for regulations.

Regulation, therefore, consists in the establishment of rules , rules or laws within a certain scope.The objective of this procedure is to maintain an order, keep track and guarantee the rights of all the members of a community.

Different organizations and institutions are subject to regulation by the State.Those who are regulated must abide by a set of rules already established to avoid committing a fault or a crime.That is why it is important that authorities carry out adequate control to ensure proper compliance with their current measures.

Some economic sectors or markets that are key to the society are also subject to regulation.strong> transport , for example, is usually regulated by the State to ensure compliance with frequencies, respect for routes, rest of drivers, etc.If transport is not regulated, there is a risk of that companies act solely in defense of their interests and deprive passengers of their rights, remaining incommunicado.

The energy sector is also usually under state regulation.In this case, it is tried that the rates are not exceeded (depriving users of an essential service such as electricity) and that they do not occur Power outages.The regulation also controls, therefore, that companies make the necessary investments to ensure the quality of service.

In other contexts, one can speak of regulation when an adjustment is made in the flow of some substance, such as water or gas.Many home heaters have a knob that allows its users to increase or reduce the pressure of the water to reach the desired temperature without altering gas consumption, promoting savings and responsible and measured use of resources.

Engineering conceives the principle of automatic regulation to control a particular state of a process, such as with certain heaters, aircraft whose routes are previously delimited and cars that allow to establish a maximum speed.This concept is also known with the name of control theory and focuses its study on the way in which dynamic systems behave (those whose state undergoes an evolution in time), interpreting them as a block with an entry point and one of output.

It is common for the input to be a signal, both analog and digital, that is perceived at a particular point in that system.Along the intermediate blocks, a defined series of actions ( known as disturbing ) directly modify the signal.The results of the regulation that the latter undergoes within the system are reflected in the mathematical functions called of transfer .

It is known as reference to the output, to the value of the input once it has been affected by the aforementioned transfer functions.In the event that some of the output variables must follow the magnitude of a reference that changes over time, it is necessary to actuate a controller to manipulate the values ​​that enter the system until the desired results are found.

It is generally said that an automatic regulation system is stable when, every bounded input in any given period of time, produces a bounded output (this is called BIBO stability , of bounded input bounded output ).When this condition is met, it is not possible for a system to explode; In other words, if the input is finite, it cannot be that the output tends to infinity, regardless of time.