Research in control and estimation of distributed parameter systems encompasses a wide range of applications including both fundamental science and emerging technologies. The latter include smart materials (piezoceramics, shape memory alloys, magnetostrictives, electrorheological fluids) fabrication and testing, design of high-pressure chemical vapor deposition (CVD) reactors for production of microelectronic surfaces (e.g., semiconductors), while the former include groundwater contamination cleanup and other environmental modeling questions, climatology, flow control, and fluid-structure interactions as well as more traditional topics in biology, mechanics, and acoustics. These expository papers provide substantial stimulus to both young researchers and experienced investigators in control theory. Includes a comprehensive and lucid presentation that relates frequency domain techniques to state-space or time domain approaches for infinite-dimensional systems including design of robust stabilizing and finite-dimensional controllers for infinite-dimensional systems. It focuses on these two approaches to control design in an integrated system theoretic framework. This is excellent reading for researchers in both the frequency domain and time domain control communities. In other articles, topics considered include pointwise control of distributed parameter systems, bounded and unbounded sensors and actuators, stabilization issues for large flexible structures, and an overview discussion of damping models for flexible structures.

Sequential algorithms for prediction, filtering, and smoothing are developed for a class of linear distributed parameter systems. The class of systems concerned is that involving noisy measurement data which are obtained from 'averaging' and 'scanner' type sensors. The basic tools of the development are the least-squares estimation viewpoint, the calculus of variations, and the sweep method for two-point boundary-value problems. An example involving the heat equation is presented to illustrate the results. (Author).