Overview

Time delays are present in many physical processes due to the period of time it takes for the events to occur. Delays are particularly more pronounced in networks of interconnected systems, such as supply chains and systems controlled over c- munication networks. In these control problems, taking the delays into account is particularly important for performance evaluation and control system's design. It has been shown, indeed, that delays in a controlled system (for instance, a c- munication delay for data acquisition) may have an "ambiguous" nature: they may stabilize the system, or, in the contrary, they may lead to deteriorationof the clos- loop performance or even instability, depending on the delay value and the system parameters. It is a fact that delays have stabilizing effects, but this is clearly con i- ing for human intuition. Therefore, speci c analysis techniquesand design methods are to be developed to satisfactorily take into account the presence of delays at the design stage of the control system. The research on time delay systems stretches back to 1960s and it has been very active during the last twenty years. During this period, the results have been presented at the main control conferences(CDC, ACC, IFAC), in specialized wo- shops (IFAC TDS series), and published in the leading journals of control engine- ing, systems and control theory, applied and numerical mathematics.