The book deals with several closely related topics concerning approxima-
tions and perturbations of random processes and their applications to
some important and fascinating classes of problems in the analysis and
design of stochastic control systems and nonlinear filters. The basic
mathematical methods which are used and developed are those of the
theory of weak con- vergence. The techniques are quite powerful for
getting weak convergence or functional limit theorems for broad classes
of problems and many of the techniques are new. The original need for
some of the techniques which are developed here arose in connection with
our study of the particular applica- tions in this book, and related
problems of approximation in control theory, but it will be clear that
they have numerous applications elsewhere in weak convergence and
process approximation theory. The book is a continuation of the author's
long term interest in problems of the approximation of stochastic
processes and its applications to problems arising in control and
communication theory and related areas. In fact, the techniques used
here can be fruitfully applied to many other areas. The basic random
processes of interest can be described by solutions to either (multiple
time scale) Ito differential equations driven by wide band or state
dependent wide band noise or which are singularly perturbed. They might
be controlled or not, and their state values might be fully observable
or not (e. g., as in the nonlinear filtering problem).