Developments in Control Theory Towards Glocal Control

Honouring the lifelong, celebrated contributions of Professor Shinji Hara to the developments of numerous control theories, this book features a collection of the latest papers from leading researchers in the field. The results presented in the book lay a solid foundation for new control theories to be developed in the future. The book explores the key concept of glocal control. The term ‘glocal’ is derived from ‘global’ and ‘local’, and glocal control is a technical term in the field of control engineering, coined by Prof. Hara, which means control of dynamical systems with local sensing and actuation to achieve a desired global behaviour. A large number of dynamical components can be interconnected and interact with each other to form an integrated system with certain functionalities. Such complex systems are found in nature and have been created by man, including gene regulatory networks, neuronal circuits for memory, bird flocking, electrical power grids, and financial markets. A common feature of these systems is that a global property or function emerges as a result of local, distributed, dynamical interactions of components. The objective of glocal control is to understand the mechanisms underlying this feature, analysing existing complex systems, and to design and create innovative systems with new functionalities. The concept of glocal control has been gaining much attention recently in the control engineering community and is an emerging research interest.