This is a self-contained introduction to algebraic control for nonlinear systems suitable for researchers and graduate students. It is the first book dealing with the linear-algebraic approach to nonlinear control systems in such a detailed and extensive fashion. It provides a complementary approach to the more traditional differential geometry and deals more easily with several important characteristics of nonlinear systems.

This book provides a unique and alternative approach to the study of nonlinear control systems, with applications. The approach presented is based on the use of algebraic methods which are intrinsically linear, rather than differential geometric methods, which are more commonly found in other reference works on the subject. This allows the exposition to remain simple from a mathematical point of view, and accessible for everyone who has a good understanding of linear control theory. The book is divided into the following three parts: Part 1 is devoted to mathematical preliminaries and to the development of tools and methods for system analysis. Part 2 is concerned with solving specific control problems, including disturbance decoupling, non-interactive control, model matching and feedback linearization problems. Part 3 introduces differential algebraic notions and discusses their applications to nonlinear control and system theory. With numerous examples used to illustrate theoretical results, this self-contained and comprehensive volume will be of interest to all those who have a good basic knowledge of standard linear control systems.

Résumé : This book presents a model-based algebraic approach to online parameter and state estimation in uncertain dynamic feedback control systems. It uses module theory, differential algebra, and operational calculus in an easy-to-understand manner and details how to apply these in the context of feedback control systems. A wide variety of examples, including mechanical systems, power converters, electric motors, and chaotic systems, are also included to illustrate the algebraic methodology. It is a comprehensive reference for researchers and practitioners working in the area of automatic control, and is also a useful source of information for graduate and undergraduate students. --

The purpose of this book is to present a self-contained description of the fun damentals of the theory of nonlinear control systems, with special emphasis on the differential geometric approach. The book is intended as a graduate text as weil as a reference to scientists and engineers involved in the analysis and design of feedback systems. The first version of this book was written in 1983, while I was teach ing at the Department of Systems Science and Mathematics at Washington University in St. Louis. This new edition integrates my subsequent teaching experience gained at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign in 1987, at the Carl-Cranz Gesellschaft in Oberpfaffenhofen in 1987, at the University of California in Berkeley in 1988. In addition to a major rearrangement of the last two Chapters of the first version, this new edition incorporates two additional Chapters at a more elementary level and an exposition of some relevant research findings which have occurred since 1985.

"An introduction to the ideas of algebraic geometry in the motivated context of system theory." Thus the author describes his textbook that has been specifically written to serve the needs of students of systems and control. Without sacrificing mathematical care, the author makes the basic ideas of algebraic geometry accessible to engineers and applied scientists. The emphasis is on constructive methods and clarity rather than abstraction. The student will find here a clear presentation with an applied flavor, of the core ideas in the algebra-geometric treatment of scalar linear system theory. The author introduces the four representations of a scalar linear system and establishes the major results of a similar theory for multivariable systems appearing in a succeeding volume (Part II: Multivariable Linear Systems and Projective Algebraic Geometry). Prerequisites are the basics of linear algebra, some simple notions from topology and the elementary properties of groups, rings, and fields, and a basic course in linear systems. Exercises are an integral part of the treatment and are used where relevant in the main body of the text. The present, softcover reprint is designed to make this classic textbook available to a wider audience. "This book is a concise development of affine algebraic geometry together with very explicit links to the applications...[and] should address a wide community of readers, among pure and applied mathematicians." —Monatshefte für Mathematik

This second edition provides much-needed updates to the original volume. Like the first edition, it emphasizes the ideas behind the algorithms as well as their theoretical foundations and properties, rather than focusing strictly on computational details; at the same time, this new version is now largely self-contained and includes essential proofs. Additions have been made to almost every chapter, including an introduction to the theory of inexact Newton methods, a basic theory of continuation methods in the setting of differentiable manifolds, and an expanded discussion of minimization methods. New information on parametrized equations and continuation incorporates research since the first edition.