Space vehicles have become increasingly complex in recent years, and the number of missions has multiplied as a result of extending frontiers in the exploration of our planetary system and the universe beyond. The advancement of automatic control in aerospace reflects these developments. Key areas covered in these proceedings include: the size and complexity of spacecrafts and the increasingly stringent performance requirements to be fulfilled in a harsh and unpredictable environment; the merger of space vehicles and airplanes into space planes to launch and retrieve payloads by reusable winged vehicles; and the demand to increase space automation and autonomy to reduce human involvement as much as possible in manned, man-tended and unmanned missions. This volume covers not only the newly evolving key technologies but also the classical issues of guidance, navigation and control.

An important, successful area for control systems development is that of state-of-the-art aeronautical and space related technologies. Leading researchers and practitioners within this field have been given the opportunity to exchange ideas and discuss results at the IFAC symposia on automatic control in aerospace. The key research papers presented at the latest in the series have been put together in this publication to provide a detailed assessment of present and future developments of these control system technologies.

This 1997 book explains basic theory of spacecraft dynamics and control and the practical aspects of controlling a satellite.

The study of nonlinear phenomena in aviation and aerospace includes developments in computer technology and the use of nonlinear mathematical models. Nonlinearities are a feature of aircraft dynamics and flight control systems and need to respond to achieve stability and performance. This multiauthor volume comprises selected papers from the conference Nonlinear Problems in Aviation and Aerospace at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and additional invited papers from many distinguished scientists. Coverage includes orbit determination of a tethered satellite system using laser and radar tracking, and intelligent control of agile aircraft, flight control with and without control surfaces.

February issue includes Appendix entitled Directory of United States Government periodicals and subscription publications; September issue includes List of depository libraries; June and December issues include semiannual index

Resources should be used sparingly both from a point of view of economy and eco logy. Thus in controlling industrial, economical and social processes, optimization is the tool of choice. In this area of applied numerical analysis, the INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF AUTOMATIC CONTROL (IFAC) acts as a link between research groups in universities, national research laboratories and industry. For this pur pose, the technical committee Mathematics of Control of IFAC organizes biennial conferences with the objective of bringing together experts to exchange ideas, ex periences and future developments in control applications of optimization. There should be a genuine feedback loop between mathematicians, computer scientists, engineers and software developers. This loop should include the design, application and implementation of algorithms. The contributions of industrial practitioners are especially important. These proceedings contain selected papers from a workshop on CONTROL Ap PLICATIONS OF OPTIMIZATION, which took place at the Fachhochschule Miinchen in September 1992. The workshop was the ninth in a series of very successful bien nial meetings, starting with the Joint Automatic Control Conference in Denver in 1978 and followed by conferences in London, Oberpfaffenhofen, San Francisco, Ca pri, Tbilisi and Paris. The workshop was attended by ninety researchers from four continents. This volume represents the state of the art in the field, with emphasis on progress made since the publication of the proceedings of the Capri meeting, edited by G. di Pillo under the title 'Control Applications of Optimization and Nonlinear Programming'.

Manual flight control system design for fighter aircraft is one of the most demanding problems in automatic control. Fighter aircraft dynamics generally have highly coupled uncertain and nonlinear dynamics. Multivariable control design techniques offer a solution to this problem. Robust Multivariable Flight Control provides the background, theory and examples for full envelope manual flight control system design. It gives a versatile framework for the application of advanced multivariable control theory to aircraft control problems. Two design case studies are presented for the manual flight control of lateral/directional axes of the VISTA-F-16 test vehicle and an F-18 trust vectoring system. They demonstrate the interplay between theory and the physical features of the systems.