Mechanics and Control

The Workshop on Control Mechanics has been held at the University of South- ern California annually since 1988 under the leadership of late Professor Janislaw M. Skowronski. The primary goal of Professor Skowronski in organizing this series of work- shops was to promote the use of advanced mechanics method in control theory with a special emphasis on the control of nonlinear mechanical systems subject to uncertainty. This goal has been achieved through a consistent participation of a large number of researchers in the field of control and mechanics and an intensive exchange of their ideas. Professor Skowronski passed away unexpectedly on March 21, 1992, after the conclusion of the Fifth Workshop. The great success of the Fifth Workshop as well as the entire Control Mechanics Workshops over the years is almost exclusively due to his dedication, enthusiasm, and organizational capabilities. His untimely demise is a great loss to us and to the mechanics and control community. The proceedings of the Fifth Workshop presented in this volume are dedicated to Professor Angelo Miele, one of the pioneers and, a leading contributor in many fields of control theory and its applications. His contribution spans a wide range of topics such as optimization theory, flight mechanics, astrodynamics, ocean engineering, and numerical methods. The presentations in the workshop reflected many of the areas in which Professor Miele has been active. The papers included in this volume are divided into three major groups of topics.

Table of Contents:
In Honor of Angelo Miele.- A Tribute to Angelo Miele.- Control Methodology.- Robust Exponential Convergence with Bounded Controllers.- Entropy Minimization Problem with Linear Constraints, Schrödinger Bridge and a Conditional Sanov Theorem.- Second Variation Conditions for the Optimal Control Problem with Normalized final Time.- Identification of the Optimal Lyapunov Function for Systems with Structured Uncertainties.- A New Tool for Robust Control.- New Directions in the Control of Nonlinear Mechanical Systems.- Partially Singular Control Trajectories Revisited.- Applications to Aerospace Systems.- Pursuit-Evasion Differential Games Applied to a 3-Dimensional Missile Guidance Problem Using the Liapunov Approach.- Game Theoretic Regular Perturbation Guidance Strategies for Aeroassisted Plane Change Missions.- Minimum-Fuel Transfer Between Coplanar Elliptic Orbits—Global Results Using Green’s Theorem.- Periodic Optimal Endurance Cruise with Variable Camber Control.- Optimal Thrust and Aerodynamic Controls in Hypersonic Flight.- Control of Mechanical Systems.- Sequential Design of a Linear Quadratic Controller for the Deep Space Network Antennas.- Maneuvering and Control of Space Structures.- Low Speed Motion Control of a Hamiltonian System.- Boundary Stabilization of Nonlinear Flexible Systems.- Differential Dynamic Programming and State Variable Inequality Constrained Problems.- Dynamical Pulse-Width-Modulation Control of Rigid and Flexible Manipulators.- A Chaotic Controller for the Double Pendulum.- Adaptive Control of Redundant Multiple Robots in Cooperative Motion.- Computational Techniques.- Jacobian Motion: A Direct Approach.- Neural Modeling and Identification of Nonlinear Systems in an Abstract Space Setting.- Global Behavior of Branin’s Method.- ANumerical Solution for the Nonlinear Eigenvalue System.- Contributors.