Appendix A
Speakers
Roger W. Brockett is An Wang Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in the Division of Applied Science at Harvard University. He has contributed extensively to the theory of automatic control with work on stability, nonlinear control, feedback linearization, system identification, nonlinear estimation, and design by pole placement. More recently his work has involved problems arising in the study of intelligent machines. Areas of particular interest include the problem of motion control and the investigation of new computational paradigms appropriate for control in the high-data-rate, sensory-rich environments that characterize vision-guided systems. Professor Brockett has been recognized by the American Automatic Control Council and the IEEE through their Richard Bellman Award and the Control System Science and Engineering Award, and he is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
P.S. Krishnaprasad is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Maryland, with a joint appointment at the Institute for Systems Research, and a member of the faculty of the Applied Mathematics Program. His research interests lie in the broad area of geometric control theory and its applications. He has contributed to the understanding of parametrization problems in linear systems, the Lie algebraic foundations of certain nonlinear filtering problems pertaining to system identification, the Lie theory and stability of interconnected mechanical systems, and symmetry principles in nonlinear control theory. In the last few years, Professor Krishnaprasad has undertaken a deeper study of the role of artificial neural networks in solving a variety of problems, and he is currently actively exploring the use of networks of coupled oscillators as a framework for perception and control in nature and in machines.
Jerrold E. Marsden is a professor in the department of Control and Dynamical Systems at the California Institute of Technology. He has done extensive research in the area of geometric mechanics, with applications to fluid mechanics, elasticity theory, plasma physics, and general field theory. He also works in the area of dynamical systems and control theory, focussing on how it relates to mechanical systems and systems with symmetry. He is one of the original developers (in the early 1970s) of reduction theory for mechanical systems with symmetry, which remains an active and much studied area of research today. He was the recipient in 1990 of the prestigious Norbert Wiener prize of the American Mathematical Society and the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics.
Richard M. Murray is an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology. His major research interests are in nonlinear control of mechanical systems, with recent emphasis on the dynamics and control of mechanical systems with nonholonomic constraints. His application areas include mobile robots, nonlinear flight control, multifingered robot hands, and active control of high-performance turbomachinery. Dr. Murray was instrumental in the creation of the new Control and Dynamical Systems Department at Caltech, which emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of dynamical systems and control, and the application of advanced theory to complex problems in engineering and science.
