Petar V. Kokotovic and Hector J. Sussmann are renowned control theorists who have made significant contributions to nonlinear control systems. Kokotovic founded the Center for Control Engineering and Computation at UC Santa Barbara and developed constructive nonlinear control methods. Sussmann taught at Rutgers University and authored over 140 research papers in nonlinear and optimal control.
The document discusses the concept of "peaking" in nonlinear control systems, where the state or output variables can grow unboundedly fast as the system evolves over time. Peaking poses a structural obstacle to achieving global or semiglobal stabilization of nonlinear systems using feedback control. The paper presents theoretical results showing that peaking can cause the region of attraction