The most significant differences between this edition and the first are as follows:
• Additional chapters and sections have been written, dealing with:
– nonlinear controllability via Lie-algebraic methods,
– variational and numerical approaches to nonlinear control, including
a brief introduction to the Calculus of Variations and the Minimum
Principle,
– time-optimal control of linear systems,
– feedback linearization (single-input case),
– nonlinear optimal feedback,
– controllability of recurrent nets, and
– controllability of linear systems with bounded controls.
• The discussion on nonlinear stabilization has been expanded, introducing
the basic ideas of control-Lyapunov functions, backstepping, and damping
control.
• The chapter on dynamic programming and linear-quadratic problems has
been substantially edited, so that the material on linear systems can be
read in a fully independent manner from the nonlinear preliminaries.
• A fairly large number of errors and typos have been corrected.
• A list of symbols has been added.
I would like to strongly encourage readers to send me suggestions and comments
by e-mail (sontag@control.rutgers.edu), and also to visit the following
Web site: