Stabilization, optimal and robust control. Theory and applications in biological and physical sciences (Q931614)

The focus of the book is stabilization, control and fluctuation of systems governed by Partial Differential Equations (PDE), and their applications to biological and physical sciences. The techniques used are the ones of robust control theory based around game theory. This theory studies the following problem: the dynamic of a plant is described by a PDE containing controls and disturbances. The control models possible intervents which can be made from outside, the disturbances are due in general to random events and are unknown. The goal of robust control is to choose the strategy, the control, in the best possible way that is the robust control has to minimize a function, the cost, for the worst possible disturbance. From a mathematical point of view, the solution of robust control problem is a saddle point of a functional in presence of constraints. The book is divided into three parts. The first one contains the results of functional analysis necessary to understand the mathematical analysis of robust control problem. The second one contains the mathematical foundation of robust control theory and the third one is devoted to apply the mathematical theory in order to solve some problems coming from different areas. In particular the problems examined are: 1. Control of the motion of vortices in phase transactions in presence of possible fluctuations and noise on the data; 2. Prediction and stabilization of microstructure dynamics that appears during isothermal solidification of a binary alloy; 3. Robust regularization of the deviation of oceanic circulation by taking into account the worst case noise caused by small variation of the surface temperature; 4. A problem of stabilization and control in clinical cancer hyperthermia therapy: 5. Stabilization of uncertain biological species 6. Problems arising in micropolar fluids and semiconductor melts. The book is of interest both for control theorist than for researchers involved in complex problems in fluid mechanics, biological systems and material sciences.