Advances in Control Systems: Theory and Applications, Volume 4 provides information pertinent to the significant progress in the field of automatic control. This book presents several fundamental approaches to algorithms for the determination of optimum control inputs to a system. Organized into six chapters, this volume begins with an overview of presents the method of sequential optimization including examples of its application. This text then examines the powerful direct method of Liapunov function techniques to the subject of the stability of stochastic dynamical systems. Other chapters consider the aspect of optimum control of large-scale complex system, which is the most striking characteristic in the evolution of the practice of control systems theory. This book discusses as well the basic techniques for the modification of the control problem. The final chapter deals with the problem of convergence properties of the method of gradients. This book is a valuable resource for engineers.
