by R.R. Negenborn, J.M. Maestre

In this chapter the motivation for developing a comprehensive overview of distributed MPC techniques such as presented in this book is discussed. Understanding the wide range of techniques available becomes easier when a common structure and notation is adopted. Therefore, a list of questions is proposed that can be used to obtain a structured way in which such techniques can be described, and a preferred notation is suggested. This chapter concludes with an extensive categorization of the techniques described in this book, and compact representations of the properties of each individual technique. As such, this chapter serves as a starting point for further developing understanding of the various particularities of the different techniques.