Introduction

Abstract

At first glance, the disciplines of finance and control engineering may look as unrelated as any two disciplines could be. However, this is true only to the uninitiated observer. For trained control engineers, the similarities of the underlying problems are striking. One, if not the main, intent of control engineering is to control a process in such a way that it behaves in the desired manner in spite of unforeseen disturbances acting upon it. Finance, on the other hand, is the study of the management of funds with the objective of increasing them, in spite of unexpected economical and political events. Once formulated this way, the similarity of control engineering to finance becomes obvious.