We present an expert system that can handle various complicated decision-making problems of optimal control that are hardly solvable manually or even by computer-aided design techniques. The expert system is the first implementation of solving decision-making problems of optimal control using a computer, which paves the way for us to develop the real-time intelligent optimal control environment. Through a user-friendly interface, the expert system can receive the needed information from the user, perform heuristic search, and provide the results of a decisionmaker quickly both on the screen and from a printer. The important features of this expert system are that it () makes a decision on the problem-solving strategies for optimal control, that is, provides the solution structure and transversality conditions as well as types of some key equations; (2) processes symbolic information; (3) breaks down the whole search into three reasoning levels such that the problem can be solved easily and the search routine can be simplified; (4) utilizes “filter rules” to reduce production rules and enhance the program efficiency; (5) modifies the knowledge base and creates new rules in production rule memory; and (6) applies a “certainty factor” to represent imprecise knowledge. The expert system has been implemented using the AI tool OPS5 on a VAX 11/780 computer running under VMS. An example is also used to illustrate our expert system.