This softcover book summarizes Lyapunov design techniques for nonlinear systems and raises important issues concerning large-signal robustness and performance. The authors have been the first to address some of these issues, and they report their findings in this text. The researcher who wishes to enter the field of robust nonlinear control could use this book as a source of new research topics. For those already active in the field, the book may serve as a reference to a recent body of significant work. Finally, the design engineer faced with a nonlinear control problem will benefit from the techniques presented here.

The underlying theory on which much modern robust and nonlinear control is based can be difficult to grasp. This volume is a collection of lecture notes presented by experts in advanced control engineering. The book is designed to provide a better grounding in the theory underlying several important areas of control. It is hoped the book will help the reader to apply otherwise abstruse ideas of nonlinear control in a variety of real systems.

Presented in a tutorial style, this comprehensive treatment unifies, simplifies, and explains most of the techniques for designing and analyzing adaptive control systems. Numerous examples clarify procedures and methods. 1995 edition.

This book deals with continuous time dynamic neural networks theory applied to the solution of basic problems in robust control theory, including identification, state space estimation (based on neuro-observers) and trajectory tracking. The plants to be identified and controlled are assumed to be a priori unknown but belonging to a given class containing internal unmodelled dynamics and external perturbations as well. The error stability analysis and the corresponding error bounds for different problems are presented. The effectiveness of the suggested approach is illustrated by its application to various controlled physical systems (robotic, chaotic, chemical, etc.).

Thepastthree decadeshaveseenrapiddevelopmentin the areaofmodelpred- tive control with respect to both theoretical and application aspects. Over these 30 years, model predictive control for linear systems has been widely applied, especially in the area of process control. However, today’s applications often require driving the process over a wide region and close to the boundaries of - erability, while satisfying constraints and achieving near-optimal performance. Consequently, the application of linear control methods does not always lead to satisfactory performance, and here nonlinear methods must be employed. This is one of the reasons why nonlinear model predictive control (NMPC) has - joyed signi?cant attention over the past years,with a number of recent advances on both the theoretical and application frontier. Additionally, the widespread availability and steadily increasing power of today’s computers, as well as the development of specially tailored numerical solution methods for NMPC, bring thepracticalapplicabilityofNMPCwithinreachevenforveryfastsystems.This has led to a series of new, exciting developments, along with new challenges in the area of NMPC.

In this work, the authors present a global perspective on the methods available for analysis and design of non-linear control systems and detail specific applications. They provide a tutorial exposition of the major non-linear systems analysis techniques followed by a discussion of available non-linear design methods.