Mauricio C. de Oliveira - Böcker

Tensegrity Systems discusses analytical tools to design energy efficient and lightweight structures employing the concept of “tensegrity.” This word is Buckminister Fuller's contraction of the words “Tensile” and “Integrity,” which suggests that integrity or, as we would say, stability of the structure comes from tension. In a tensegrity structure the rigid bodies (the bars) might not have any contact, thus providing extraordinary freedom to control shape, by controlling only tendons. This book will provide both static and dynamic analysis of special tensegrity structural concepts, which are motivated by biological material architecture. This will be the first book written to attempt to integrate structure and control design. All other books on structure design and books on control design assume these are independent topics, but performance can be greatly improved if the dynamics of the structure and the dynamics of the controls are coordinated to reduce the control efforts required to accomplish the system performance requirements.

Tensegrity Systems discusses analytical tools to design energy efficient and lightweight structures employing the concept of “tensegrity.” This word is Buckminister Fuller's contraction of the words “Tensile” and “Integrity,” which suggests that integrity or, as we would say, stability of the structure comes from tension. In a tensegrity structure the rigid bodies (the bars) might not have any contact, thus providing extraordinary freedom to control shape, by controlling only tendons. This book will provide both static and dynamic analysis of special tensegrity structural concepts, which are motivated by biological material architecture. This will be the first book written to attempt to integrate structure and control design. All other books on structure design and books on control design assume these are independent topics, but performance can be greatly improved if the dynamics of the structure and the dynamics of the controls are coordinated to reduce the control efforts required to accomplish the system performance requirements.

This volume is dedicated to Bill Helton on the occasion of his sixty fifth birthday. It contains biographical material, a list of Bill's publications, a detailed survey of Bill's contributions to operator theory, optimization and control and 19 technical articles. Most of the technical articles are expository and should serve as useful introductions to many of the areas which Bill's highly original contributions have helped to shape over the last forty odd years. These include interpolation, Szegö limit theorems, Nehari problems, trace formulas, systems and control theory, convexity, matrix completion problems, linear matrix inequalities and optimization.The book should be useful to graduate students in mathematics and engineering, as well as to faculty and individuals seeking entry level introductions and references to the indicated topics. It can also serve as a supplementary text to numerous courses in pure and applied  mathematics and engineering, as well as a source book for seminars.