The series Advances in Industrial Control aims to report and encourage
technology transfer in control engineering. The rapid development of
control technology has an impact on all areas of the control discipline.
New theory, new controllers, actuators, sensors, new industrial
processes, computer methods, new applications, new philosophies, new
challenges. Much of this development work resides in industrial reports,
feasibility study papers and the reports of advanced collaborative
projects. The series offers an opportunity for researchers to present an
extended exposition of such new work in all aspects of industrial
control for wider and rapid dissemination. Almost all physical systems
are nonlinear and the success of linear control techniques depends on
the extent of the nonlinear system behaviour and the careful attention
given to switching linear controllers through the range of nonlinear
system operations. In many industrial and process-control applications,
good engineering practice, linear control systems and classical PID
control can give satisfactory performance because the process
nonlinearity is mild and the control system performance specification is
not particularly demanding; however, there are other industrial system
applications where the requirement for high-performance control can only
be achieved if nonlinear control design techniques are used. Thus, in
some industrial and technological domains there is a strong
justification for more applications of nonlinear methods. One prevailing
difficulty with nonlinear control methods is that they are not so easily
understood nor are they easy to reduce to formulaic algorithms for
routine application.
