Author Description

There has been a great deal of excitement over the last few years concerning the emergence of new mathematical techniques for the analysis and control of nonlinear systems: witness the emergence of a set of simplified tools for the analysis of bifurcations, chaos and other simplified tools for the analysis of bifurcations, chaos and other complicated dynamical behaviour and the development of a comprehensive theory of nonlinear control. Coupled with this set of analytic advances has been the vast increase in computational power available both for the simulation of nonlinear systems as well as for the implementation in real time of sophisticated, real-time nonlinear control laws. Thus, technological advances have bolstered the impact of analytic advances and produced a tremendous variety of new problems and applications which are nonlinear in an essential way. This book lays out in a concise mathematical framework the tools and methods of analysis which underlie this diversity of applications. The material presented in this book is culled from different 1st year graduate courses that the author has taught at MIT and at Berkeley.