Abstract: An apparatus for optimal control of distributed actuator and sensor arrays includes a control system having a state estimator including an operator which acts on estimation error through convolution with respect to a spatial variable to generate a state estimate, and a control output generator which applies a control operator to the state estimate through convolution with respect to the spatial variable. A method of designing an optimized control system includes the steps of obtaining a system model, computing a transform of the model with respect to the spatial domain, solving linear matrix inequalities to generate auxiliary variables, performing an inverse transform on the auxiliary variables, and computing an estimator operator and a control operator for a model-based estimator control system.