Geometric Methods in System Theory In automatic control there are a large number of applications of a fairly simple type for which the motion of the state variables is not free to evolve in a vector space but rather must satisfy some constraints. Examples are numerous; in a switched, lossless electrical network energy is conserved and the state evolves on an ellipsoid surface defined by x'Qx equals a constant; in the control of finite state, continuous time, Markov processes the state evolves on the set x'x = 1, xi ~ O. The control of rigid body motions and trajectory control leads to...