A numerical method for a finite difference approach has been established for the analysis and control of the fluid behavior of flow past a cylinder. The discretization of the 2D Navier-Stokes equations is done over a staggered grid, convective terms in the momentum equations are handled using a mixture of central differences and donor-cell discretization, and the Poisson equations for the pressure is solved through the successive overrelaxation (SOR) method. We also study some open-loop and closed-loop control of the flow field by rotating the cylinder. For the open-loop design, we mainly make use of the energy method, and for the feedback design both the energy method and the phase method are applied.