This book, divided into eight chapters, is devoted to the study of optimal control problems of ordinary differential equations which include a small parameter \(\epsilon\). The title of the book can be confused. Indeed, the book does not contain a general theory of optimal control, but the author tries to present consistently small parameter techniques relating to the constructive investigations of some classes of optimal control problems which arise in practice. Asymptotic and averaging methods are presented to solve the problems. These methods are based on the maximum principle. Many applied problems are included to illustrate these methods. The exposition is heuristic, no theorem or proof is found in the book.
[See also the review of the Russian original (1987) in Zbl 0626.49002].