1 - A First Example: Optimal Quadratic Control

Summary

The book starts out with a motivating chapter to answer the question: Why is it worthwhile to develop system theory? To do so, we jump fearlessly in the very center of our methods, using a simple and straight example in optimization: optimal tracking. Although optimization is not our leading subject– which is system theory– it provides for one of the main application areas, namely the optimization of the performance of a dynamical system in a time-variant environment (for example, driving a car or sending a rocket to the moon). The chapter presents a recursive matrix algebra approach to the optimization problem, known as dynamic programming. Optimal tracking is based on a powerful principle called “dynamic programming,” which lies at the very basis of what ”dynamical” means.