The use of symbolic computation in nonlinear control: is it viable?

To aid in the analysis and design of nonlinear control systems the NONlinCON package (an acronym for Nonlinear Control) has been developed. This paper addresses the usefulness of the NONlinCON package as a self contained tool in the symbolic analysis and design of nonlinear control systems, as a replacement and/or complement for numerical tools, and as a substitute for analytical (paper and pencil) work. The symbolic computation program MAPLE is used as a computing substrate for NONlinCON. To assess the viability of this tool several algorithms available for analysis and design are implemented in the package, and applied to examples of textbook problems with published solutions and also to a larger scale problem. It is concluded that, at the present state, symbolic computation is a viable approach for straightforward textbook problems, but not grown up enough to tackle larger problems