A reduced dimensional control dynamics formulation is presented for an
arbitrary number of degrees of freedom. The traditional control feedb
ack partial differential equation now becomes a small set of ordinary
differential equations amenable to efficient numerical solution. This
approach is capable of. finding optimal solutions with only a few feed
back iterations, thereby dramatically reducing the effort to obtain co
ntrol designs. As an example, the reduced formalism is applied to sele
ctive dissociation of a triatomic molecule.