Contains papers from a summer 1997 meeting on recent developments and important open problems in geometric control theory. Topics include linear control systems in Lie groups and controllability, real analytic geometry and local observability, singular extremals of order 3 and chattering, infinite time horizon stochastic control problems in hyperbolic three space, and Monge-Ampere equations. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

Contains papers that represent the proceedings of a conference entitled 'Differential Geometry: The Interface Between Pure and Applied Mathematics', which was held in San Antonio, Texas, in April 1986. This work covers a range of applications and techniques in such areas as ordinary differential equations, Lie groups, algebra and control theory.

Since the 1950s control theory has established itself as a major mathematical discipline, particularly suitable for application in a number of research fields, including advanced engineering design, economics and the medical sciences. However, since its emergence, there has been a need to rethink and extend fields such as calculus of variations, differential geometry and nonsmooth analysis, which are closely tied to research on applications. Today control theory is a rich source of basic abstract problems arising from applications, and provides an important frame of reference for investigating purely mathematical issues. In many fields of mathematics, the huge and growing scope of activity has been accompanied by fragmentation into a multitude of narrow specialties. However, outstanding advances are often the result of the quest for unifying themes and a synthesis of different approaches. Control theory and its applications are no exception. Here, the interaction between analysis and geometry has played a crucial role in the evolution of the field. This book collects some recent results, highlighting geometrical and analytical aspects and the possible connections between them. Applications provide the background, in the classical spirit of mutual interplay between abstract theory and problem-solving practice.

This outstanding guide supplies important mathematical tools for diverse engineering applications, offering engineers the basic concepts and terminology of modern global differential geometry. Suitable for independent study as well as a supplementary text for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses, this volume also constitutes a valuable reference for control, systems, aeronautical, electrical, and mechanical engineers.The treatment's ideas are applied mainly as an introduction to the Lie theory of differential equations and to examine the role of Grassmannians in control systems analysis. Additional topics include the fundamental notions of manifolds, tangent spaces, vector fields, exterior algebra, and Lie algebras. An appendix reviews concepts related to vector calculus, including open and closed sets, compactness, continuity, and derivative.

Some of the modem developments described in Motion, Control, and Geometry include the geometric control of robot motion and craft orientation, how high-power precision micromotors are engineered for less invasive surgery and self-focusing lens applications, what a mobile robot on a surface has in common with one moving in three dimensions, and how the motion-control problem is simplified by a coupled oscillator's geometric grouping of degrees of freedom and motion time scales. The four papers in these proceedings provide a view through the scientific portal of today's motion-control geometric research into tomorrow's technology. The mathematics needed to carry out this research is that of modem differential geometry, and the questions raised in the field of motion-control geometry go directly to the research frontier. Geometry is a mathematical area too often neglected nowadays in a student's education. This publication will help adjust the control initially imposed about 2,300 years ago on one kind of "motion"-that of students entering Plato's Academy, where the following caveat was inscribed above the doorway: "Let no one ignorant of geometry enter here." Readers of these chapters will gain an appreciation of modem geometry and how it continues to play a crucial role in the context of motion control in cutting-edge science and technology.

The second of three parts comprising Volume 54, the proceedings of the Summer Research Institute on Differential Geometry, held at the University of California, Los Angeles, July 1990 (ISBN for the set is 0-8218-1493-1). Among the subjects of Part 2 are gauge theory, symplectic geometry, complex ge

Honoring Andrei Agrachev's 60th birthday, this volume presents recent advances in the interaction between Geometric Control Theory and sub-Riemannian geometry. On the one hand, Geometric Control Theory used the differential geometric and Lie algebraic language for studying controllability, motion planning, stabilizability and optimality for control systems. The geometric approach turned out to be fruitful in applications to robotics, vision modeling, mathematical physics etc. On the other hand, Riemannian geometry and its generalizations, such as sub-Riemannian, Finslerian geometry etc., have been actively adopting methods developed in the scope of geometric control. Application of these methods has led to important results regarding geometry of sub-Riemannian spaces, regularity of sub-Riemannian distances, properties of the group of diffeomorphisms of sub-Riemannian manifolds, local geometry and equivalence of distributions and sub-Riemannian structures, regularity of the Hausdorff volume, etc.

Control theory, a synthesis of geometric theory of differential equations enriched with variational principles and the associated symplectic geometry, emerges as a new mathematical subject of interest to engineers, mathematicians, and physicists. This collection of articles focuses on several distinctive research directions having origins in mechanics and differential geometry, but driven by modern control theory. The first of these directions deals with the singularities of small balls for problems of sub-Riemannian geomtery and provides a generic classification of singularities for two-dimensional distributions of contact type in a three-dimensional ambient space. The second direction deals with invariant optimal problems on Lie groups exemplified through the problem of Dublins extended to symmetric spaces, the elastic problem of Kirchhoff and its relation to the heavy top. The results described in the book are explicit and demonstrate convincingly the power of geometric formalism. The remaining directions deal with the geometric nature of feedback analysed through the language of fiber bundles, and the connections of geometric control to non-holonomic problems in mechanics, as exemplified through the motions of a sphere on surfaces of revolution. This book provides quick access to new research directions in geometric control theory. It also demonstrates the effectiveness of new insights and methods that control theory brings to mechanics and geometry.

Geometric control theory is concerned with the evolution of systems subject to physical laws but having some degree of freedom through which motion is to be controlled. This book describes the mathematical theory inspired by the irreversible nature of time evolving events. The first part of the book deals with the issue of being able to steer the system from any point of departure to any desired destination. The second part deals with optimal control, the question of finding the best possible course. An overlap with mathematical physics is demonstrated by the Maximum principle, a fundamental principle of optimality arising from geometric control, which is applied to time-evolving systems governed by physics as well as to man-made systems governed by controls. Applications are drawn from geometry, mechanics, and control of dynamical systems. The geometric language in which the results are expressed allows clear visual interpretations and makes the book accessible to physicists and engineers as well as to mathematicians.