A distributed delay is a linear input-output operators and appears in many control problems. We investigate distributed delay and its applications. After introducing the definition and the main properties of the distributed delay, the numerical implementation problem of distributed delays is analyzed and a general method for its approximation is given. Then three applications are focused on where distributed delay appears. The first application is the stable inversion and model matching. A new class of stable inversion and model matching problem for finite dimensional linear time-invariant systems is defined. The stable inversion (resp. model matching) is an approximation of the inverse of a given model (resp. model matching), where exact inversion (resp. exact matching) is reached after a time t=h, which is a parameter of our procedure. The second application is concerned with stabilization and finite spectrum assignment for a class of infinite dimensional systems. The last application concerns observer synthesis for estimation or output control. For linear finite dimensional systems. A closed-loop memoryless observer by input injection is introduced. Asymptotic convergence as well as finite time convergence of the estimation are analyzed by output injection and input information via distributed delay. At last, we introduce a new class for approximation of distributed parameter systems. We work on the graph topology, and show that under some weak assumptions, such an approximation can be realized using distributed delay.
