Variational Calculus And Optimal Control

This undergraduate textbook introduces students of science and engineering to the fascinating field of optimization. It is a unique book that brings together the subfields of mathematical programming, variational calculus, and optimal control, thus giving students an overall view of all aspects of optimization in a single reference.

This book focuses on how to implement optimal control problems via the variational method. It studies how to implement the extrema of functional by applying the variational method and covers the extrema of functional with different boundary conditions, involving multiple functions and with certain constraints etc.

The 12th conference on "Variational Calculus, Optimal Control and Applications" took place September 23-27, 1996, in Trassenheide on the Baltic Sea island of Use­ dom. Seventy mathematicians from ten countries participated. The preceding eleven conferences, too, were held in places of natural beauty throughout West Pomerania;