Art of Imagination: 20th Century Visions of Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy

Optimal control emerged as a distinct field of research only in recent decades. It provides a unified perspective of optimization problems, arising in scheduling and the control of engineering devices, that are beyond the reach of traditional analytical and computational techniques. In addition, the field has contributed significant advances to branches of applied mathematics and broad applications in process control, scheduling, robotics, resource economics, and other areas. Optimal Control brings together many of the important advances in 'nonsmooth' optimal control over the last two decades concerning necessary conditions, minimizer regularity and global optimality conditions associated with the Hamilton-Jacobi equation. The book's development and analysis is largely self-contained and incorporates numerous simplifications and unifying features for the subjects' key concepts and foundations. Features and Topics: * a comprehensive overview is provided for specialists and nonspecialists * authoritative, coherent and accessible coverage of the role of nonsmooth analysis in investigating minimizing curves for optimal control * chapter coverage of dynamic programming *explains the necessary conditions for nonconvex problems * chapter coverage of the regularity of minimizers This new book is an essential resource for an authoritative and comprehensive presentation of the foundations and application of nonsmooth optimal control. Postgraduates, researchers and professionals in systems, control, optimization and applied mathematics will find that the book is accessible, provides a rich source of insights and offers clear exposition.Frank M. Robinson is the author of 'Art of Imagination: 20th Century Visions of Science Fiction, Horror, and Fantasy' with ISBN 9780817640750 and ISBN 0817640754.