The world of artificial systems is reaching complexity levels that es cape human understanding. Surface traffic, electricity distribution, air planes, mobile communications, etc. , are examples that demonstrate that we are running into problems that are beyond classical scientific or engi neering knowledge. There is an ongoing world-wide effort to understand these systems and develop models that can capture its behavior. The reason for this work is clear, if our lack of understanding deepens, we will lose our capability to control these systems and make they behave as we want. Researchers from many different fields are trying to understand and develop theories for complex man-made systems. This book presents re search from the perspective of control and systems theory. The book has grown out of activities in the research program Control of Complex Systems (COSY). The program has been sponsored by the Eu ropean Science Foundation (ESF) which for 25 years has been one of the leading players in stimulating scientific research. ESF is a European asso ciation of more than 60 leading national science agencies spanning more than 20 countries. ESF covers has standing committees in Medical Sci ences, Life and Environmental Sciences, Physical and Engineering Sci ences, Humanities and Social Sciences. The COSY program was ESF's first activity in the Engineering Sciences. The program run for a period of five years starting January 1995.
Editors and Affiliations
Department of Automatic Control, Lund Institute of Technology, Lund, Sweden
Karl Åström
Departamento de Ingeniería de Sistemas y Automática, Universidad Politécnica de Valencia, Valencia, Spain
Pedro Albertos
Department of Control Engineering, Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark
Mogens Blanke
Dipartimento de Informatica e Sistemistica, Università de Roma (La Sapienza), Rome, Italy
Alberto Isidori
Institut für Automatik, Zurich, Switzerland
Walter Schaufelberger
Departamento de Automática, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Ricardo Sanz
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Control of Complex Systems
Editors: Karl Åström, Pedro Albertos, Mogens Blanke, Alberto Isidori, Walter Schaufelberger, Ricardo Sanz
