Bridging the gap between the theory and practice of control: aerospace perspectives

Over the past several decades, control theorists have generated an impressive array of new techniques that span a wide variety of fields, including classical control, optimal control, adaptive control, robust control, nonlinear control, hierarchical control, and intelligent control. Concurrently, however, one of the disappointments within some segments of the control community is the perceived slow rate at which these techniques have been adapted into industrial practice. The purpose of this special section is to address this issue and propose some suggestions to assist in tailoring theory for practice from an aerospace perspective.