IUTAM symposium on chaotic dynamics and control of systems and processes in mechanics. Proceedings of the IUTAM symposium, Rome, Italy, June 13--18, 2003. (Q2483737)

IUTAM Symposia are certainly the most prestigious meetings of the theoretical and applied mechanics community restricted to a small number of participants. Consequently, the most competent individuals in the corresponding field of the Symposium will try to attend and present their work at these symposia. Quite naturally the contents of the Proceedings volume of such a Symposium must give a good insight and overview of current research in the corresponding field. The volume under review is no exception in this respect and shows which subjects in the field of nonlinear dynamics and control are currently hot research topics in the applied mechanics community. Let us mention some of them. First, it must be emphasized that the occurence of chaotic dynamics is not always unwelcome. In satellite dynamics it has already been shown that quite naturally the combination of chaotic dynamics and control which usually is called control of chaos may be very beneficial. In fact, it allows to steer a system in phase space from one state into another with very small additional energy input. If the system is close to the desired, new state linear control is sufficient to stabilize it. Another prominent subject are non-smooth systems. Here nice mathematical classification results are available for codimension one bifurcations in planar Fillipov systems. Also this class of problems has important applications like brake squeal of high-speed trains. Another important field is micromechanics where actuators are integrated in structures which sometimes are called smart structures and for which active damping of undesired oscillations may be achieved. Other subjects included in this volume concern optimal control, identification, synchronisation and delay and random systems. There is no doubt that this volume will be of great help for everybody, but especially for young scientists wishing to enter this field because it gives a nice state-of-the-art collection of papers on the subject from the engineering point of view.