Field of applied mathematics relevant to the control of certain physical processes and systems.
It became a field in its own right in the late 1950s and early '60s. After World War II, problems arising in engineering and economics were recognized as variants of problems in differential equations and in the calculus of variations, though they were not covered by existing theories. Special modifications of classical techniques and theories were devised to solve individual problems, until it was recognized that these seemingly diverse problems all had the same mathematical structure, and control theory emerged. See also control system .