The Institute's unique organization facilitates this access to experts across divisions. Control and Dynamical Systems faculty members and students work jointly with research groups in Chemical, Electrical, and Mechanical Engineering, as well as in Mathematics and Applied Mathematics. Some of the most exciting interactions between mathematics and engineering are occurring in the area of analysis and control of uncertain, multivariable, and nonlinear systems. While changing technology has made control and dynamical systems theory increasingly relevant to a much broader class of problems, the interdisciplinary nature of this area means that they no longer have a natural home exclusively or even primarily within any one of the traditional engineering disciplines. The CDS option is designed to meet the challenge of educating students both in the mathematical methods of control and dynamical systems theory and their applications to engineering problems.
Automatic control is an enormously successful field that affects every aspect of our lives.
A combination of technological developments, economic pressures, and research advances has promoted control into a central position in technology, and over the next several decades, the impact of automatic control systems will continue to grow. The rapid development of dynamical systems theory as an intellectual discipline over the past ten years has been equally striking. At the same time, dynamical systems, continues to enjoy strong links with pure and applied mathematics. While research in both control and dynamical systems is inherently interdisciplinary and crosses many traditional engineering and scientific boundaries, their relationship is much deeper. As theoretical disciplines, they are moving together rapidly.