Perspectives in Control Engineering Technologies, Applications, and New Directions

This edited volume brings together a set of chapters authored by experts in a number of specialized subfields of control technology. Our objective is to provide a broad review of the state of the art in control science and engineering, with particular emphasis on new research and application directions. The "take home message" is that controls is a vibrant, exciting, diverse field. Its new initiatives are likely to ensure its central role in technological solutions for the increasingly complex challenges facing society and industry in a new millennium.

This book is targeted to control engineers of all stripes, from industrial practitioners to academic researchers. This is a broad audience, and the book attempts to appeal to this diversity by not narrowly constraining the style, tone, or technical depth of individual chapters. Some chapters are technical tutorials; others focus on discussions of today's state of the art; some provide experimental results; several emphasize future visions; and so on. The author hope that the heterogeneity will create cross-cutting appeal; the goal is that every control engineer will find parts of this book of significant interest both intellectually and professionally. Most chapters are written at a level appropriate for an undergraduate-degree control engineer, but a few may require an introductory graduate-level mathematical background.