Large - Scale Dynamic Systems

of the Department of Mathematics, are gratefully acknowledged. Special thanks are due Larry Sharp, who handled the many small details during the workshop, and also Wanda Sayer and Lynette Robinson, who cheerfully completed the almost impossible task of typing the manuscripts and rough drafts of the proceedings. PURPOSE AND APPROACH This seminar workshop was held on the campus of Utah State University during the week of August 12—16, 1974. The general purpose of the workshop was to discern classes of large-scale dynamic systems, with no attempt to solve their problems. It was felt that such a workshop was necessary to help bridge the gap between the theory that power has been substantiated in small problems where analytic models are readily verified and that required for the almost incomprehensibly large problems in aeronautics, economics, natural resource management, and many other fields which modern computational capability has emboldened researchers to face. The approach adopted for the workshop contained three elements. One element was to examine three major examples of large-scale systems. It was hoped that an examination of these examples would result in a transfer of knowledge so that control theorists would gain a broader view of large systems and a knowledge of how the problems are being successfully handled. Principles or properties common to large systems could be extracted. Finally, it was hoped that studying the examples in the context of modern control theory would present directions of research that would lead to useful methods of analysis and synthesis. The remarks that follow show the workshop' was somewhat successful in realizing these hopes. The three technical areas covered in the examples were aeronautics, water resources, and electric power. Aeronautics technology was described in two papers. The opening paper reviewed the growing use, in the development of aircraft, of computer-based methods to coordinate procedures and concepts from several technical disciplines. The second illustrated the complexity in one of the simulations. Water resources management was also discussed in two papers: the first described the problem in general and the second illustrated the dynamic analysis of a canal reach. The development of analysis and its present status in the electric power distribution industry were covered in a single paper. A second element of the approach of the workshop was to review control theory relevant to large-scale systems. This was accomplished by the control theorists who explained the development of their ideas. The provocative paper …