Logic and control

Abstract

I will give a brief account of how I came to introduce the term Hybrid System and to encourage it as a subject of study. I will also discuss what one should understand to pursue the subject fully, and also discuss the lines of development of my joint research with Wolf Kohn in this area. This is an area at the interface of mathematics, computer science, and control engineering, which has been pursued by many in all three areas since its inception. It can be thought of as the subject which deals with the interaction of discrete and continuous processes. This paper is intended to be legible to those without advanced analysis or differential geometry in their background. We concentrate on control, not on logics of hybrid systems, and aim at an audience unfamiliar with control. I make no apologies for not being technical. This is not a survey of the field. For a year 2000 survey see [1]. A survey made now would be very large. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2007.