Symbolic aids for modelling, analysis, and synthesis of nonlinear control systems

This chapter describes the role of symbolic computation in several phases of the control system design cycle, namely modelling, analysis, and synthesis. It provides some mathematical background of nonlinear system theory and presents a guided tour through those phases using typical examples, both contrived and real life ones. To name them, the symbolic computation of (1) the zero dynamics, used for different purposes, (2) the input-output exact linearising state-feedback, and (3) the state space exact linearising state-feedback, all for nonlinear dynamic systems, are discussed. The examples are coming from a diverse range of applications and provide a picturesque landscape of this area of research. The possibilities and limitations of the so-called NonLinCon package, based on the symbolic computation program Maple, are outlined with these examples. This package was developed to aid with analytical computations in the area of nonlinear control systems.