Optimal Control of Switched-input and Uncertain Systems

The book is concerned with three application fields that deal with optimal control of switched-input and uncertain systems. It shows how to effectively compute optimal control inputs for them. The first application field is the development of an optimal controller for thermal printheads. A robust printhead controller is developed that shows a measurable and significant quality gain when printing barcodes. In the second field two load tracking scheduling problems are presented. One is the scheduling of employees so that the employee presence tracks a pre-specified demand curve. The other is concerned with the energy-cost optimal scheduling of a steel plant. The third field is concerned with the medium term control of a hydro-thermal system. The results of the different projects are related to each other and observations on the computational complexity of the application projects are given.