Control systems, despite often being `invisibly' incorporated within products,
devices and vehicles, are ubiquitous. They are prevalent within the automotive
and aerospace industries and form part of the vanguard of technologies in in-
creasing performance, improving fuel economy and increasing safety. One of the
most appealing aspects of incorporating control technology in many systems is
that the addition of extra control functionality can usually be achieved merely
through the addition of extra software code though, in many cases, additional
sensors and actuators may be required.
This relatively simple implementation modality masks both the capability
of control systems and the high level of engineering underpinning the devel-
opment of a suitable control algorithm. For example, many high-performance
model-based control design methods require an accurate mathematical model
of the system to be controlled and a significant number of man-hours can be
absorbed in modelling. Nevertheless, there is usually a good case to be made
for the incorporation of control technology to improve the performance (both
technical and economic), reliability and safety of a system. In this chapter, we
will examine the role that control engineering can play in making ocean energy
technology more competitive
