Control Theoretic Splines: Optimal Control, Statistics, and Path Planning - Hardcover

by Magnus Egerstedt (Author), Clyde Martin (Author)

Splines, both interpolatory and smoothing, have a long and rich history that has largely been application driven. This book unifies these constructions in a comprehensive and accessible way, drawing from the latest methods and applications to show how they arise naturally in the theory of linear control systems. Magnus Egerstedt and Clyde Martin are leading innovators in the use of control theoretic splines to bring together many diverse applications within a common framework. In this book, they begin with a series of problems ranging from path planning to statistics to approximation. Using the tools of optimization over vector spaces, Egerstedt and Martin demonstrate how all of these problems are part of the same general mathematical framework, and how they are all, to a certain degree, a consequence of the optimization problem of finding the shortest distance from a point to an affine subspace in a Hilbert space. They cover periodic splines, monotone splines, and splines with inequality constraints, and explain how any finite number of linear constraints can be added. This book reveals how the many natural connections between control theory, numerical analysis, and statistics can be used to generate powerful mathematical and analytical tools.

Back Jacket

"This is the only book I know of that combines control theory with splines. Its multidisciplinary approach will appeal to a wide range of readers, including researchers in control theory and splines, numerical analysis, engineering, and biology. The book is well organized and nicely written. Reading it was quite enjoyable."--Zhimin Zhang, Wayne State University

Author Biography

Magnus Egerstedt is associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Clyde Martin is the P. W. Horn Professor of Mathematics and Statistics at Texas Tech University.