From the reviews: "The book is an excellent combination of theory and real-world applications. Each application not only demonstrates the power of the theoretical results but also is important on its own behalf." IEEE Control Systems Magazine

The problem of controlling the output of a system so as to achieve asymptotic tracking of prescribed trajectories and/or asymptotic re jection of undesired disturbances is a central problem in control the ory. A classical setup in which the problem was posed and success fully addressed - in the context of linear, time-invariant and finite dimensional systems - is the one in which the exogenous inputs, namely commands and disturbances, may range over the set of all possible trajectories ofa given autonomous linear system, commonly known as the exogeneous system or, more the exosystem. The case when the exogeneous system is a harmonic oscillator is, of course, classical. Even in this special case, the difference between state and error measurement feedback in the problem ofoutput reg ulation is profound. To know the initial condition of the exosystem is to know the amplitude and phase of the corresponding sinusoid. On the other hand, to solve the output regulation problem in this case with only error measurement feedback is to track, or attenu ate, a sinusoid ofknown frequency but with unknown amplitude and phase. This is in sharp contrast with alternative approaches, such as exact output tracking, where in lieu of the assumption that a signal is within a class of signals generated by an exogenous system, one instead assumes complete knowledge of the past, present and future time history of the trajectory to be tracked."

This book incorporates recent advances in the design of feedback laws to the purpose of globally stabilizing nonlinear systems via state or output feedback. It is a continuation of the first volume by Alberto Isidori on Nonlinear Control Systems. Specifically this second volume will cover: *Stability analysis of interconnected nonlinear systems. The notion of Input-to-State stability and its role in analysing stability of cascade-connected or feedback-connected systems. The notion of dissipativity and its consequences (passivity and "gain"). *Robust stabilization in the case of parametric uncertainties. The case of state feedback: global or semi-global stabilization. The case of output feedback: semi-global stabilization. *Robust stabilization in the case of unstructured perturbations. Feedback design via the small-gain approach. Robust semi-global stabilization via output feedback. *Methods for asymptotic tracking, disturbance rejection and model following. Global and semi-global analysis. *Normal forms for multi-input multi-output nonlinear systems form a global point of view. Their role in feedback design.

The world of artificial systems is reaching hitherto undreamed-of levels of complexity. Surface traffic, electricity distribution, mobile communications, etc., demonstrate that problems are arising that are beyond classical scientific or engineering knowledge. In order that our ability to control such systems should not be hindered by lack of comprehension, there is an on-going effort to understand them.This book is an example of the types of approach that European researchers are using to tackle problems derived from systems' complexity. It has grown out of activities in the Control of Complex Systems (COSY) research program the goals of which are to promote multi-disciplinary activity leading to a deeper understanding and further development of control technologies for complex systems and if possible, to develop the theory underlying such systems. The material in this book represents a selection of the results of the COSY program and is organised as a collection of essays of varying nature: surveys of essential areas, discussion of specific problems, case studies, and benchmark problems.Topics covered include:Modelling complex physical systems;Passivity-based control of non-linear systems;Aspects of fault identification and fault tolerance;Control design;Learning control;Satellite attitude control.Complex systems appear in many different fields and for this reason this book should be of interest to scientists, researchers and industrial engineers with a broad spectrum of experience.

This established and authoritative text focuses on the design and analysis of nonlinear control systems. The author considers the latest research results and techniques in this updated and extended edition. Examples are given from mechanical, electrical and aerospace engineering. The approach consists of a rigorous mathematical formulation of control problems and respective methods of solution. The two appendices outline the most important concepts of differential geometry and present some specific findings not often found in other standard works. The book is, therefore, suitable both as a graduate and undergraduate text and as a source for reference.

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."

This eagerly awaited follow-up to Nonlinear Control Systems incorporates recent advances in the design of feedback laws, for the purpose of globally stabilizing nonlinear systems via state or output feedback. The author is one of the most prominent researchers in the field.

The problem of controlling the output of a system so as to achieve asymptotic tracking of prescribed trajectories and/or asymptotic re jection of undesired disturbances is a central problem in control the ory. A classical setup in which the problem was posed and success fully addressed - in the context of linear, time-invariant and finite dimensional systems - is the one in which the exogenous inputs, namely commands and disturbances, may range over the set of all possible trajectories ofa given autonomous linear system, commonly known as the exogeneous system or, more the exosystem. The case when the exogeneous system is a harmonic oscillator is, of course, classical. Even in this special case, the difference between state and error measurement feedback in the problem ofoutput reg ulation is profound. To know the initial condition of the exosystem is to know the amplitude and phase of the corresponding sinusoid. On the other hand, to solve the output regulation problem in this case with only error measurement feedback is to track, or attenu ate, a sinusoid ofknown frequency but with unknown amplitude and phase. This is in sharp contrast with alternative approaches, such as exact output tracking, where in lieu of the assumption that a signal is within a class of signals generated by an exogenous system, one instead assumes complete knowledge of the past, present and future time history of the trajectory to be tracked."

From the reviews: "The book is an excellent combination of theory and real-world applications. Each application not only demonstrates the power of the theoretical results but also is important on its own behalf." IEEE Control Systems Magazine

This book contains the text of the plenary lectures and the mini-courses of the European Control Conference (ECC 95) held in Rome, Italy, September 5-September 8, 1995. In particular, the book includes nine essays in which a selected number of prominent authorities present their views on some of the most recent developments in the theory and practice of control systems design and three self-contained sets of lecture notes. Some of the essays are focused on the topic of robust control. The article by J. Ackermann describes how to robustly control the rotational motions of a vehicle, to the purpose of simplifying the driver's task. The contribution by H. K wakernaak presents a detailed discussion of the requirements that performance and robustness impose on control systems design and of the symmetric roles of sensitivity and complementary sensitivity functions. The article by P. Boulet, B. A. Francis, P. C . Hughes and T. Hong describes an experimental testbed facility, called Daisy, whose dynamics emulate those of a real large flexible space structure and whose purpose is to test advanced identification and control design methods. The article of K. Glover discusses recent advances in uncertain system modeling, analysis and design, with ref erence to a flight control case study that has been test flown. The other essays describe advances in fundamental problems of control theory. The article by V. A. Yakubovich is a survey of certain new infinite horizon linear-quadratic optimization problems. The contribution by A. S.

Control of nonlinear systems, one of the most active research areas in control theory, has always been a domain of natural convergence of research interests in applied mathematics and control engineering. The theory has developed from the early phase of its history, when the basic tool was essentially only the Lyapunov second method, to the present day, where the mathematics ranges from differential geometry, calculus of variations, ordinary and partial differential equations, functional analysis, abstract algebra and stochastic processes, while the applications to advanced engineering design span a wide variety of topics, which include nonlinear controllability and observability, optimal control, state estimation, stability and stabilization, feedback equivalence, motion planning, noninteracting control, disturbance attenuation, asymptotic tracking. The reader will find in the book methods and results which cover a wide variety of problems: starting from pure mathematics (like recent fundamental results on (non)analycity of small balls and the distance function), through its applications to all just mentioned topics of nonlinear control, up to industrial applications of nonlinear control algorithms.

Control of nonlinear systems, one of the most active research areas in control theory, has always been a domain of natural convergence of research interests in applied mathematics and control engineering. The theory has developed from the early phase of its history, when the basic tool was essentially only the Lyapunov second method, to the present day, where the mathematics ranges from differential geometry, calculus of variations, ordinary and partial differential equations, functional analysis, abstract algebra and stochastic processes, while the applications to advanced engineering design span a wide variety of topics, which include nonlinear controllability and observability, optimal control, state estimation, stability and stabilization, feedback equivalence, motion planning, noninteracting control, disturbance attenuation, asymptotic tracking. The reader will find in the book methods and results which cover a wide variety of problems: starting from pure mathematics (like recent fundamental results on (non)analycity of small balls and the distance function), through its applications to all just mentioned topics of nonlinear control, up to industrial applications of nonlinear control algorithms.

The world of artificial systems is reaching complexity levels that es cape human understanding. Surface traffic, electricity distribution, air planes, mobile communications, etc., are examples that demonstrate that we are running into problems that are beyond classical scientific or engi neering knowledge. There is an ongoing world-wide effort to understand these systems and develop models that can capture its behavior. The reason for this work is clear, if our lack of understanding deepens, we will lose our capability to control these systems and make they behave as we want. Researchers from many different fields are trying to understand and develop theories for complex man-made systems. This book presents re search from the perspective of control and systems theory. The book has grown out of activities in the research program Control of Complex Systems (COSY). The program has been sponsored by the Eu ropean Science Foundation (ESF) which for 25 years has been one of the leading players in stimulating scientific research. ESF is a European asso ciation of more than 60 leading national science agencies spanning more than 20 countries. ESF covers has standing committees in Medical Sci ences, Life and Environmental Sciences, Physical and Engineering Sci ences, Humanities and Social Sciences. The COSY program was ESF's first activity in the Engineering Sciences. The program run for a period of five years starting January 1995."

This volume is the outcome of the first CASY workshop on "Advances in Control Theory and Applications" which was held at University of Bologna on May 22-26, 2006. It consists of selected contributions by some of the invited speakers and contains recent results in control.

The volume is intended for engineers, researchers, and students in control engineering.