Control systems theory with engineering applications (Q701547)

This book presents a foundation of modern control system theory. It is well known that dynamical systems like living organisms, electromechanical and industrial systems, chemical and technological processes, market and ecology can be considered and analyzed using system theory. The advent of computers has caused rapid strides in the area of control design and these circumstances are reflected in this book. For example software like MATLAB and SIMULINK are widely used here. Using of MATLAB and SIMULINK permits the investigator to formulate and solve the increasingly complex problems of control design. This textbook contains descriptions of classical methods and a variety of modern effective methods in control system theory. To mention some of them: control of dynamic systems using digital PID control laws; Hamilton-Jacobi and Lyapunov methods in optimal control of continuous and discrete-time systems; analysis, identification, and control of linear and nonlinear dynamic systems using Lyapunov stability theory; constrained optimization of continuous and discrete time systems; non-quadratic Lyapunov functions. Several statements and remarks are incorrect, for example the statement: ``Lyapunov's main idea is very simple: If the total energy of a system has a local minimum at a certain equilibrium point, that point is stable'' is not exact. Lyapunov's main idea is more general and cannot be reduced to energy analysis only (p. 179). The authors mention that Lyapunov was an Ukrainian scientist is incorrect. Lyapunov was Russian. He was born in the Russian town Yaroslavl in 1857. He was graduated at the Petersburg University in 1880, and was invited to Kharkov in 1885. The last years of his life he worked at the Petersburg University (1902--1917) and died in Odessa (1918). Finally, it is proper to refer to the book by \textit{A. A. Pervozvansky} [A course in automatic control theory. Moskva: Nauka, Fizmatgiz, 616 (1986)] which is close in its contents to the book under review. This book may be very useful for students, postgraduate students, engineers and scientists who are studying and designing controlled dynamical systems.