The Digital Control of Systems Applications to Vehicles and Robots

During the first quarter of 1983, following numerous comments from industry and universities concerning the limited distribution of the results of research contracts financed by the DRET, the idea of publishing these results first took root. Using the fourteen chosen authors mentioned on the cover page, all of whom work under contract for the DRET, the research results have been brought together and elaborated on in this book. A second idea, reflected in the structure of this work, was the desire to make certain control techniques, which had hitherto been restricted to specialist researchers, available to a larger number of engineers and students. Thus the second part of this book, concerned with practical applications, illustrates the use of algorithms whose theory is described in the first part. The first part is the result of a large amount of work which brings together the many different strands of current work. The applications to machines and robots enhance the book by providing non-academic illustrations. Each application may form the subject of a case study in an engineering course. Readers engaged in teaching may contact the authors if they require more detailed information.