Multi-objective optimal control: An introduction

Optimization techniques have been a crucial tool for designing control systems and for tuning controllers for a very long time. However, the increasing requirements of quality for new products and consequently the natural needs of more advanced control systems have led to the introduction of several coupled performance indices. These cost functions have to be fulfilled simultaneously, which in turn involves sophisticated techniques for Multi-Objective Optimization (MOO). Thus, many control problems can be solve by using MOO techniques. These design techniques are collected together in order to constitute the Multi-objective Optimal Control (MOOC) field. In the present paper, the field is introduced in general, describing several MOOC problems.