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Invitation to the 2007 American Control Conference

July 11-13, 2007. The conference will cover a broad range of topics relevant to the theory and practice of control and automation. The preliminary program is in place. There were 1750 paper submissions; 892 regular papers were accepted and there will be 22 invited sessions and 8 tutorial sessions. Twenty-one technical sessions are scheduled for Wednesday, and twenty on Thursday and Friday.

The 2007 ACC encouraged submissions in three special areas this year. Sessions concerning these areas will be held according the the following schedule:

Wednesday, July 11, Control Methods in Finance;
Thursday, July 12, Control in Transportation Systems; and
Friday, July 13, Control and Integration in Intelligent Building Systems.

In addition to a plenary session on Wednesday, there will be two semi-plenary sessions on both Thursday and Friday. The plenary topics are:

"Stochastic Control in the Context of Mathematical Finance: problems, results and challenges,” Ioannis Karatzas, Department of Mathematics, Columbia University.
"Feedback and Stability in the Air Transportation System,” R. John Hansman, Director, MIT International Center for Air Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
"Consummating the Union between Communications and Control,” Andrea Goldsmith, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University.
"Structure and Passivity in Large-Scale Network Analysis and Design", Murat Arcak, Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Dept., Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.
"Control Issues and Research Activities in Building Automation and Control Systems,” Steven T. Bushby, Leader, Mechanical Systems and Controls Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Eleven exciting workshops are planned for Monday and Tuesday.

Practical Techniques in Control Engineering
Recent Advances in Subspace System Identification: Linear, Nonlinear, Closed-loop and Optimal with Applications
Engineering Applications in Genomics
Diagnostics, Prognostics, and Health Management (DPHM): from theory to practice
An Introduction to Financial Engineering for Control Theorists
Uncertain System Control: An Engineering Approach
Theory and Practice of Cross-Directional Control Systems with Industrial Applications
Model Predictive Control Workshop
Simple Adaptive Control – The Stable Direct MRAC
Simulation and Monte Carlo Methods
Electroactive Polymers (EAP’s) as Artificial Muscles and Sensors: Fundamentals, Applications, and Control It should be noted that the price of workshops have been significantly reduced from previous years.

Several interesting special sessions have been organized.

History Session: Tuesday 5-6 pm, before the opening reception
Special Finance Session: Wednesday afternoon & evening
National Science Foundation Open House: 2-3:30 Wednesday and Thursday
New Frontiers of Dynamic Systems: Thursday evening
ISA Special Session: Thursday evening
How Not to Present Your Work: Friday, noon
Women in Control Lunch: Wednesday, 11:30

The 2007 ACC will be held at the Marriott Marquis, which overlooks Times Square and is located in the heart of New York City's Theater District. There are many restaurants within walking distance, a short cab or subway ride away, to appeal to every taste and price range. Central Park is one-half mile north of the conference site. Also within a short distance of the hotel are Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. Some of the world’s most exclusive stores are just a few blocks away. The Marquis has given us an excellent conference rate of only $186/night plus tax.

If you have questions, visit our website http://www.a2c2.org/conferences/acc2007/ or email the appropriate person on the Operating Committee. I am looking forward to seeing many of you in July.

Robert Judd
2007 ACC General Chair

2008 American Control Conference Call for Papers

The 2008 American Control Conference (ACC) will be held Wednesday through Friday, June 11-13, 2008 at the Westin Seattle Hotel, Seattle, Washington. The ACC is the annual conference of the American Automatic Control Council, the U.S. national member organization of the International Federation for Automatic Control. National and international society cosponsors of ACC include AIAA, AIChE, AIST, ASCE, ASME, IEEE, ISA, and SCS.

The 2008 ACC technical program will cover new developments related to theory, application, and education in control science and engineering. The topics include, but are not limited to: adaptive control, automotive control, biomedical systems, communication network control, control education, decentralized control, distributed systems, estimation, fault detection, flexible structures, flow control, flight control, guidance and control, hybrid systems, identification, industrial applications, intelligent control, manufacturing, MEMS, modeling and advanced simulation, motion control, multivariable control, neural networks, nonlinear control, optimal control, power systems, process control, robotics, robust control, signal processing, spacecraft control, and uncertain systems. Contributors are encouraged to consult the conference website and contact appropriate organizing committee members for more information. Please note that in addition to the standard podium format, the technical program will also include interactive sessions featuring posters and hardware and software demonstrations. All submissions will be subjected to the same review standards.

Contributed papers can be submitted in regular or short paper categories. Regular papers are intended to be complete descriptions of finished work. Short papers are intended to present novel ideas or preliminary results.

Invited session proposals should present topics from multiple viewpoints with unifying themes. Each proposal should consist of a summary statement and six regular papers.

Education/Tutorial session proposals should address state-of-the-art control theory and industrial applications. Tutorials are encouraged to have panel discussions.

Preconference workshop proposals addressing topics of current interest to the controls community are invited. We encourage state of the art workshops with high level of interest, impact, creativity and innovation.

Industry-Focused Tutorial Sessions: These sessions feature a one-hour tutorial presentation on an industrially proven, but still relatively new technique, followed by a series of short presentations from industrial participants discussing the implementation, application, and benefits of the technique.

We also invite exhibit proposals related to control theory, practice, and education. The ACC exhibit area typically features booths by book publishers, local and national organizations, and suppliers of software and hardware systems.

The conference will take place in Seattle, the “Emerald City,” home to the Space Needle and Starbucks Coffee. Seattle offers a variety of activities and attractions including historic tours of the Pacific Northwest, zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks, museums, sports tours, cruises, ferries, trains, planes, beaches, cultural events, children’s activities, shopping, outdoor recreation, restaurants, nightlife, sensational places to stay and captivating streets to walk. Come visit - this region is amazing, unforgettable and fun. The new Experience Music Project, renovated Seattle Art Museum, Sculpture Park, Asian Art Museum, Museum of Flight, Seattle Aquarium, Pike Place Market, Pacific Science Center, Seattle Children’s Museum, Japanese Garden, Woodland Park Zoo, Hiram M. Chittenden Locks, cruises in Puget Sound and beyond, award-winning restaurants, and an acclaimed nightlife and music scene are but some of the amazing, unforgettable, fun things to do in this city. In addition, surrounded by lakes, rivers, Puget Sound, and mountains, Seattle is a recreation enthusiast's dream.

Visit http://www.a2c2.org/conferences/acc2008/ for complete conference information. You may also contact the General Chair: Anuradha Annaswamy, 617 253 0860, aanna@mit.edu, or the Program Chair, Tariq Samad, tariq.samad@honeywell.com

KEY DATES
Deadline for all submissions and proposals: Sept 15, 2007
Notification of Acceptance/Rejection: Jan 31, 2008
Final manuscript submission deadline: Mar 15, 2008

Anuradha Annaswamy
2008 ACC General Chair

President's Corner

The state of the AACC is excellent. First, of all the AACC finances are in excellent shape. Our main source of income is the ACC conference, and any financial returns from the conference are distributed back to the member societies in proportion to their participation in the conference. One of the most important developments in the financial arena for AACC is the financial return we get for papers published in the ACC Proceedings through the IEEE Xplore program. This has enabled our treasurer, Russ Rhinehart, to create over the past few years a strategic reserve of approximately $300,000, which ensures that we can weather any unexpected problems in conferences and symposia that we underwrite, while still returning funds of approximately $100,000 total each year to member societies. In the future, we expect this new source of income to enable us to reduce the cost of ACC participation, especially for students, and to increase our investment in AACC awards.

Our secretary Pradeep Misra is the glue that holds this virtual organization together, maintaining our web site (www.a2c2.org), overseeing the preparation and distribution of the AACC Newsletter, and organizing and setting the agenda for twice-yearly Board meetings. Recently, Pradeep has worked on improvements to the web site, in addition to getting past ACC Proceedings scanned so that they can be included in the IEEE Xplore program.

Finally, it is noteworthy that the American Control Conference has been successful and vital for a quarter of a century, with about 1000 attendees each year since 1982. The reason for this has been the extraordinary effort by volunteer organizers of the conference to ensure a high-quality technical program and to serve the needs of the community. Recently, there has been some discussion about whether we can call the 2006 ACC the Silver Anniversary ACC, since no ACC was held in 1996. Instead, the AACC hosted the 1996 IFAC World Congress in San Francisco. I suggest that this simply gives us license to celebrate 25 years of ACC twice, both this year in Minneapolis as well as next year in New York City (http://www.a2c2.org/conferences/acc2007/).

I thank you all for your participation in past and upcoming AACC events.

A. Galip Ulsoy
President, AACC 2006-2007

Vice President Invites Feedforward and Feedback Action

Feedforward Action: Many of you may not be aware of the process to select the venue and Operating Committee for an ACC. About five to six years before an ACC, the AACC Board appoints the General Chair for the conference. The General Chair begins the site selection process by first considering the geographical region of the conference. (Since we engineers have a natural talent for pattern recognition, you may have already noted that the ACC cycles from the West Coast to Central to East Coast locations.) A major constraint is finding conference hotels that can provide enough meeting space (usually 18 parallel sessions) at a reasonable hotel room rate, without requiring too many attendee hotel room-nights in the contract. (There is a sliding scale charge to the ACC if minimum room-nights are not satisfied.) The General Chair selects a Program Chair, who must also be approved by the AACC Board. Over time, a total of 12-13 conference Operating Committee positions are filled. You may have a question about how people are selected for these positions. Several different routes are used. One, the General or Program Chair may invite people that they have worked with during previous conferences. In addition, AACC Directors and Officers often suggest names for the Operating Committee or the Program Committee (which is organized by the Program Chair). If you are interested in being more involved in the organization and operation of an American Control Conference, I suggest that you contact the AACC Director associated with your main professional society (IEEE, etc.); the contact information for all Directors is available on the website (www.a2c2.org). Alternatively, you may email me (bequette@rpi.edu) to volunteer your efforts.

Feedback Action: One of my primary AACC responsibilities is to chair the ACC Steering Committee meetings, which bring together the General and Program Chairs of past and future conferences to share best practices, and to provide continuity from conference to conference. Each year we also conduct a survey to help improve the ACC from year to year. I encourage you to respond to the ACC surveys and to contact me directly with your ideas and suggestions. Are there new ideas that we should try out at the ACC? Do you have particular cities that you feel would be a good location for an ACC (remembering that our conferences are generally held in June)? Please send me emails providing suggestions to improve ACCs or to volunteer for conference responsibilities.

B. Wayne Bequette
Vice President, AACC 2006-2007

Global Concerns XXXII

It is with trepidation that I write this column following in the footsteps of Steve Kahne and Mike Masten. Many things happened at IFAC since the last column appeared more than a year ago.

IFAC has been in an excited state under the leadership of President Wook Kwon. On September 15, 2006 the 50th anniversary celebration was held in Heidelberg, Germany. It was organized by Rolf Isermann with contributions from our own Steve Kahne, Mike Masten, and Janos Gertler. The celebration ended with fireworks in the court of Schloss Heidelberg. Please refer to the IFAC web site to see the latest pictures from the event.

In 2005, IFAC instituted the Fellow award. The first recipients were awarded during the IFAC Congress in Prague in July 2005. The process now is handled on an annual basis, and this year recipients were honored during the IFAC 50th celebration. Among the honorees were our own Mike Masten (who could not attend), Tom McAvoy, Davor Hrovat (past winner of the AACC CEP award), Mike Athans (past winner of the AACC Bellman award), and Petros Ioannou. The deadline for next year Fellow nominations is December 2006.

IFAC also started a Foundation to assist your control researchers and engineers. All funds in the Foundation will be used to support its mission, while all administrative costs will be borne by the IFAC regular budget. A major contributor to the Foundation (which also served as the spark that started the process) is IFAC President Kwon who donated $500,000.

Another indication of the health of IFAC is the record number of NMOs who submitted proposals to host the IFAC Congress in 2014. There were seven proposals at the Heidleberg Council meeting, and the Council painfully selected two finalists for its decision at the Council meeting in June 29, 2007 in Toulouse, France in conjunction of the IFAC Symposium on Automatic Control in Aerospace.

During the historical review that Steve Kahne presented at the IFAC 50th, it was apparent that some original documents from the past were no longer available. To correct such oversight in the future, IFAC will include a new section on its web site devoted to control timeline and other educational resources in the control field. Steve Kahne was appointed Editor-in-Chief for this section of the IFAC web site. I hope all ACC participants will browse the IFAC web site often in order to keep up with all the changes taking place. Please refer to the news section in the IFAC web site (http://www.ifac-control.org) for more information on this issue. In particular, please refer to http://140.78.137.200/ifac50/home.html to view the control time-line. Any comments and suggestion should be forwarded to Steve Kahne (kahne@erau.edu).

Last year the IFAC publisher, Elsevier, decided not to publish any proceedings of IFAC technical meetings. As a solution to this problem, IFAC will design an open source web site for all such papers. The site will be free to users, and the papers will be fully citable and have a unique identifiable number. Details will be provided at a future time.

It is important to remember that the next IFAC Congress is scheduled for July 6-11, 2008 in Seoul, Korea with a deadline for paper submission of September 8, 2007. So you have almost a full year to prepare your contribution to IFAC'08.

The main activity in IFAC is carried out within the Technical Committees. Any persons interested in participating in an IFAC Technical Committee are invited to contact AACC Secretary, Pradeep Misra (pmisra@cs.wright.edu). It is important for US control researchers and engineers to be involved with IFAC. Young people are needed so that the relation between IFAC and the US NMO continues to be strong into the future.

Finally, I wish to thank Mike Masten for the superb way he represented the US NMO at the IFAC Council.

2006 American Control Conference Report

The 2006 American Control Conference (ACC) was held June 14-16 2006 at the Minneapolis Hilton in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The ACC has been held under the auspices of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), the U.S. National Member Organization of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). It brings together individuals working in control, automation, and related areas from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), the American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), the Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the International Society for Measurement and Control (ISA), and the Society for Computer Simulation (SCS).

The venue for this conference provided a great environment for interaction among the attendees, and enjoyment of the local attractions and rich culture. The success of this conference is attributed to the attendees, authors, presenters and chairs that made the conference come alive. The logistics in bringing the event together were handled by the enthusiastic operating committee that devoted 3 years of their time and effort into the planning and execution of this conference.

The exciting and diversified technical program was based on excellent material that authors from 38 countries submitted to the conference: 1444 contributed papers, 171 invited papers, and 32 invited session proposals. The final manuscript acceptance rates were 61% contributed and 81% invited papers, which led to a very high quality program. There were 175 total technical sessions distributed over 3 days of the conference in 20 parallel sessions, that included one interactive and 3 tutorials sessions. There also were 5 special sessions and four industrial special sessions. Each day started with plenary talks, given by Professors Shankar Sastry, UC Berkeley (Networked Embedded Systems: Sensor Nets and Beyond), Dr. John Bay, ARL (Modeling the World: How to Make Control the Dominant Discipline in Tomorrow’s Applications) and Dr. Pablo Parrilo, MIT (Sum of Squares Methods in Optimization and Control and the 2005 Eckman awardee). Five special sessions were organized at this ACC: Industrial Academic Interacti The Exhibit, with 16 exhibitors, was integrated with the other events of the conference by holding the exhibit in highly visible foyer area in front of the ballrooms, meeting rooms, and conference registration desk. This setting allowed for animated interaction among the conference attendees and exhibitors. This conference also had the sponsorship of 5 industrial sponsors: Honeywell, United Technology Research Center, The Mathworks, Raytheon and Eaton. Their contributions are greatly appreciated and the funds have been used to provide partial support to graduate students who have requested financial travel support from the conference.

The pre-conference workshops were held on Monday and Tuesday. A total of 8 workshops were held: two 2-day workshops and six 1-day workshops (2 on Monday and 4 on Tuesday). This year the conference offered Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for all the workshops through IEEE.

The social program was one of the highlights of the conference in itself: the traditional ACC Awards Luncheon was held on Thursday at the Minneapolis Hilton, which had a record number of attendees. The paid Special Event took place on Thursday evening at the Minnesota Historical Center, which allowed the attendees to learn about the rich history of Minnesota. The attendees of the special event were also treated with a raffle of books, software and hardware donated by exhibitors. The Closing Reception was held at the Nicollet Island Pavilion, located on an island in the Mississippi River with a great view of the downtown Minneapolis, with entertainment provided by a wonderful Jazz band.

The American Automatic Control Council (AACC) awards were made at the Awards Luncheon. The awardees this year were Murat Arcak for the Donald P. Eckman Award, David Bayard for the Control Engineering Practice Award, Masayoshi Tomizuka for the John R. Ragazzini Award, N.C. Martins and M.A. Dahleh for the O. Hugo Schuck Award for Theory, T. Keviczky and G.J. Balas for the Hugo Schuck Award for Practice, and Tamer Basar for the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award. Among the 1151 attendees in this ACC were 273 students, an increasingly important crowd of young participants in this conference. Thanks to funds provided by the AACC, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the Control System Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), the Dynamic Systems and Control Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), and the industrial sponsors, the conference was able to support the travel of 86 students. Another important activity for the students is the Best Stud Thanks to all the authors, session chairs, members of the program committee, numerous anonymous reviewers, paperplaza support team, student helpers, and members of the operating committee. This conference was a tremendous success. We are now looking forward for the 2007 ACC in New York City!

Eduardo A. Misawa
2006 ACC General Chair

Invitation to the 2007 American Control Conference

On behalf of the organizing committee let me invite you to attend the 2007 American Controls Conference on July 11-13, 2007. The conference will cover a broad range of topics relevant to the theory and practice of control and automation. We had a very large number of submissions and are planning an exciting technical program. In addition to a plenary session on Wednesday, we will have two semi-plenary sessions on both Thursday and Friday. The plenary topics are:

"Stochastic Control in the Context of Mathematical Finance: Problems, Results and Challenges," Ioannis Karatzas, Department of Mathematics, Columbia University
"Feedback and Stability in the Air Transportation System," R. John Hansman, Director, MIT International Center for Air Transportation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
"Consummating the Union between Communications and Control," Andrea Goldsmith, Department of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University
"Structure and Passivity in Large-Scale Network Analysis and Design", Murat Arcak, Electrical, Computer, and Systems Engineering Department, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
"Control Issues and Research Activities in Building Automation and Control Systems," Steven T. Bushby, Leader, Mechanical Systems and Controls Group, National Institute of Standards and Technology

In addition to traditional control topics, the 2007 ACC encouraged submissions in three special areas. Sessions concerning these areas will be held according the following schedule:

Wednesday, July 11, Control Methods in Finance
Thursday, July 12, Control in Transportation Systems
Friday, July 13, Control and Integration in Intelligent Building Systems

The Program Committee will meet in December to determine the details of the final technical program.

The 2007 ACC will be held at the Marriott Marquis, which overlooks Times Square and is located in the heart of New York City's Theater District. There are many restaurants within walking distance, a short cab or subway ride away, to appeal to every taste and price range. Central Park is one-half mile north of the conference site. Also within a short distance of the hotel are Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum. Some of the world's most exclusive stores are just a few blocks away. The Marquis has given us an excellent conference rate of only $186/night plus tax.

If you have questions, visit our website http://www.a2c2.org/conferences/acc2007/ or email the appropriate Operating Committee member. I am looking forward to seeing many of you in July.

Robert Judd
2007 ACC General Chair

President's Corner

I hope you enjoyed your summer, at least those of you who live in the northern hemisphere. And I hope that most of you are working on papers for the 2005 American Control Conference (ACC), which will be in Portland Oregon from June 8-10. I am looking forward to seeing as many of you as possible in Port-land. The AACC exists for three purposes, to sponsor the ACC, to be the United States' national member organization (representative) to the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), and to give several awards for research and teaching in control. If people do not attend the ACC and present papers there, then we have little or no reason to exist. For more information about the 2005 ACC, see the conference web site http://www.ee.washington.edu/conf/acc2005/ I hope you are also planning to participate in the 2005 IFAC Congress, which will be held in Prague, Czech Republic from July 4-8, 2005. The deadline for submitted papers was September 8, 2004. You can find more information about this meeting at the web site http://ifacplaza.certicon.cz/index.php

I would like your opinion on a decision reached by the AACC Board of Directors at our meeting on July 2. We are oc-casionally asked to provide our mailing list to some other or-ganization. Generally, they want it for a reasonable purpose such as to notify the people on our mailing list of some meeting. Apparently, it is now illegal in Europe to provide our list with-out first obtaining permission to do so from all of the names on it. The Board of Directors discussed two possible policies. Ob-tain permission from all the people on the list so we can provide it to appropriate organizations. Alternatively, do not provide the list to anyone else. The Board of Directors vote resulted in a tie. I cast the deciding vote in favor of the alternative. Thus, our mailing list is not available to anyone else. I am very interested in your views on this. We can change our decision at our meet-ing in December if you think we should.

Lastly, you may have noticed that we have begun surveying those who attend the ACC by means of the web. Until last year, the survey was done by paper forms handed out at the meeting. Replacing this by a web-based survey has many advantages. The two most important are that we have gotten a much higher response rate and it is much easier to process the data. For in-stance, we have 268 responses so far to our questions regarding the 2004 ACC versus 34 to a similar paper-based survey in 2002. The mean response to our question about the technical quality of the 2003 ACC was 4.06 out of a possible 5 (Most sat-isfied equal 5, least satisfied equal 1) with a standard deviation of 0.86.

We take these surveys very seriously. All the General Chairs of future ACC's look at this data. They are encouraged to try new things in the hope of improving our meetings. If these experiments succeed, they become a regular part of the ACC. If not, we do not do them again. We strongly encourage you to respond to the survey. It is not hard and, as people spe-cializing in control, we certainly appreciate the value of feed-back.

William S. Levine
President, AACC 2004-2005

Vice President Invites Feedback

The American Automatic Control Council (AACC), as the na-tional member organization representing the U.S.A. in the Inter-national Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), plays an important role for the U.S.A. control community. The AACC also annually organizes the American Control Conference (ACC), which brings together the control engineering research-ers from a variety of professional societies. Although two dec-ades old, the ACC continues to be a vibrant venue, with about 1000 attendees per year, where one can interact with control engineers engaged in research from a variety of disciplinary perspectives.

Each year we conduct a survey to better understand how to continually improve the ACC from year to year. For example, by introducing tutorial and interactive sessions, workshops, spe-cial sessions, etc. There is also an ACC Steering Committee, chaired by the vice president of AACC, that brings together the general and program chairs of recent and future ACC's to share best practices. The surveys and the Steering Committee help en-sure that we build each year on the strengths of previous ACC's while continuing to bring in new ideas. Amazingly, this is all done by volunteers - most of whom can't even fit their regular jobs into a 40 hour week!

As the current vice president of AACC, I encourage you to respond to the ACC surveys, to contact me directly with your ideas and suggestions. I will bring them to the ACC Steering Committee for consideration. For example, are there other pro-fessional societies with significant control activities that would enrich the AACC? Are there new activities that we should try out at the ACC? Can we use the AACC to provide a stronger voice for control engineering research nationally? Please send me your ideas email appearing elsewhere in the newsletter.

A. Galip Ulsoy
Vice-President, AACC 2004-2005

Global Concerns XXXI

How do birds fly? Before the Wright brothers, almost everyone was convinced that birds fly by flapping their wings. As a result, early aviation pioneers naturally focused on flapping wing mechanisms. As early as 1884, Lawrence Hargrave had small working model airplanes with wings that produced motions of birds in flight (or that of a swimming fish). A year later, he had ten working models; seven based on flapping bird wings and three that used "screws". He claimed that both approaches were equally effective, but he preferred - and could cite several advantages for - flapping wing arrangements. By 1890, he had demonstrated several working vehicles (typically weighing less than 5 or 6 pounds) with compressed air engines for short duration flights. He believed that steam engines - using flapping wing mechanisms - would eventually enable sustained flight. By 1892, Hargrave had discovered that wings with curved surfaces achieve increased lift and in 1894, he linked together four box kites into a "cellular" wing arrangement which achieved greater stability and lift than any other configuration. This box kite wing design was subsequently used by many other inventors, including the Wright brothers.

Although Hargrave achieved many breakthroughs, includ-ing curved wings (with thick leading edges) and vertical stabi-lizers to improve glide stability, he refused to abandon the "ob-vious" flapping wing approach for power. As a result, he never achieved a propulsion system to deliver the necessary lift-to-weight ratio for sustained flight. In the meantime, the Wright brothers, using a gasoline engine and screw propeller, achieved in 1903, the first powered flight with a human on board!

Hargrave was recognized for his considerable accomplish-ments. Indeed, it was reported in 1893, "If there be one man, more than another, who deserves to succeed in flying through the air, that man is Mr. Lawrence Hargrave …" Nevertheless, although Hargrave had a well defined problem, and although he accomplished much, he was blinded by tunnel vision toward a particular solution that was ultimately impractical.

How do computers work? About 80 years before the Wright brothers' success, another pioneer was making progress in an-other field. Charles Babbage dreamed of developing a me-chanical machine to calculate mathematical tables. As a mathe-matician, he derived methods to perform relatively complex formulas using simple "addition" operations and then designed a "Difference Engine" in 1819 to implement the methods. Al-though it was difficult to convince his government to invest in a complex mechanism of brass, steel, and pewter clockwork, he nevertheless was able to do so. By 1832, Babbage conceived of an even better machine, an "Analytical Engine" that could per-form not just one mathematical formula, but any kind of calcula-tion. Unfortunately, in 1834, after the British government had put £17,000 into the Difference Engine (and Babbage had put £6,000 of his own money), work was stopped. After eight more years of indecision (whether to continue the Difference Engine or start the Analytical Engine), the government decided in 1842 to proceed no further with either project. Meanwhile, Babbage completed his first designs for the Analytical Engine and then developed several more, but, unfortunately, he never completed any of the designs.

Although the Analytical Engine never progressed beyond detailed drawings, it had many of the logical components of to-day's computers. It had a "store" (registers), which contained the variables to be operated upon - as well as results of prior op-erations; a "mill" (CPU) where variables were brought to be op-erated upon; and a "control" (program) which prescribed the se-quence of operations to be performed for any given application. "Control" was to be developed by the user (programmer) and would be assembled as a sequence of punched cards (the pro-gram).

Many believe Babbage was a hundred years ahead of his time, but that critical tolerances required for his machines ex-ceeded available technology. However, this is incorrect. In fact, in 1841, Thomas Fowler, a self-taught printer and bookseller, designed a successful calculating device (built from wood) that used mechanical rod logic. Whereas Babbage used an analog decimal system (with numbers 0 through 9 each represented by a discrete position of a rotating wheel), Fowler's machine was digital with numbers represented by simple sliding rods that oc-cupied only one of three positions at any time. Reducing the number of distinct physical states meant parts could be made less precisely; simple wooden devices were entirely sufficient. Furthermore, in 1853 two Swedish engineers (Georg and Ed-vard Scheutz) built a small working Difference Engine - using Babbage's description - which printed mathematical, astronomi-cal, and actuarial tables with unprecedented accuracy, and which was used by both the British and American governments. In 1876, only five years after Babbage's death, an obscure in-ventor, George Barnard Grant, exhibited a full-sized Differ-ence Engine (containing over 15,000 moving parts) at the Phila-delphia Centennial Fair. The point is that, although Babbage's Analytical Engine was intellectually sophisticated, construction was certainly not beyond the technology of his day.

What was the Problem? Hargrave had a well defined problem, but his mental and emotional commitment to "flapping wings" was an unworkable solution. Babbage could also define his problem - and even had a vision for an excellent solution - but was vexed with implementation. He used analog (rather than digital), mechanical (rather than electrical), and he envisioned steam powered operation. And like all pioneers, both Hargrave and Babbage had only limited colleagues with which to work.

We can all have similar experiences to Lawrence Hargrave and Charles Babbage. We can work hard, and some of us may develop significant innovations, but sometimes in spite of our devoted work and truly useful accomplishments, we may still have "incorrect assumptions" which prevent truly revolutionary breakthroughs. How does one avoid such incorrect assumptions or "blind spots"? Experts describe engineering design as a com-bination of intuition / innovation / creation followed by analysis / implementation / refinement. Today, numerous tools assist us during the final refinement phase: verified mathematical models, simulation tools, and rapid prototyping can produce excellent forecasts for the behavior of a given design. However, there are few tools that leverage the creation phase - that point where we conceive of the fundamental ideas (sometimes on a simple paper napkin). Basic assumptions made during the concept phase usu-ally make the difference between ultimate success and failure.

How can IFAC help? To improve creativity, it is useful to in-crease the diversity of ideas to which we are exposed, to have discussions with colleagues who are exploring other approaches for similar problems, and to have someone else question our fundamental assumptions. Indeed, a recent survey of IFAC af-filiates indicated that the most valuable reason for participating in IFAC events is exposure to high quality papers; this exposure clearly broadens our subsequent creative powers. The second most relevant reason is the opportunity to "network", which also leverages our perspective. Clearly, we should engage in IFAC and other similar activities whenever possible. Your career suc-cess may be the ultimate result!

However, engaging in IFAC doesn't solve all problems. On December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers sent a telegram to their sister, Katherine, "We have actually flown 120 feet. Will be home by Christmas". When Katherine showed the exciting news to the Editor of her local newspaper, he noted, "How nice. The boys will be home for Christmas".

Mike Masten
IFAC Council Member

President's Corner

The year 2004 brings several very significant changes to the American Automatic Control Council (AACC or A2C2). As you probably know, the key people in the operation of the council have been Abe Haddad, its Secretary, and Mal Beaverstock, its Treasurer. Both Abe and Mal have done their jobs with great verve and enthusiasm as well as skill for many years. This year Pradeep Misra replaces Abe Haddad as Secretary and R. Russell Rhinehart replaces Mal Beaverstock as Treasurer. This change has been gradual. Pradeep and Russ have been working with their predecessors for several years and have already shown that they can perform in their new roles. I hereby offer Abe and Mal my personal thanks for the many things they have done for the council and for me. And, I wish Pradeep and Russ every success in their new jobs.

In addition, I have replaced Christos Georgakis as President and A. Galip Ulsoy is replacing me as Vice President. It was a pleasure for me to serve as Christos' Vice President. I hope that Galip can honestly say the same thing about me in two years. I hope that you are all planning to attend the 2004 American Control Conference from June 30-July 2 this summer. The conference will be held at the Boston Sheraton Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, one of my favorite cities. Jason Speyer, the General Chair, and Lucy Pao, the Program Chair, have put together almost all that is needed for a great conference. All that remains is for you to come to the meeting. You can find all the information you may need about the conference at http://www.mie.uiuc.edu/acc2004/.

I would like you to know about an unhappy situation involving the IEEE and the US government. I do not have the space or the knowledge to provide the details here. Briefly, an agency of the US government has informed IEEE that providing services to IEEE members from one of the countries on the government's list of embargoed countries would constitute trading with the enemy. As a result, the IEEE has apparently adopted an embargo of their own against dealing with such members. I strongly urge you to inform yourselves about this issue, to decide where you stand on it, and to let IEEE and the government know what you believe. The issue is important to other societies as well. I also urge you to investigate the position of any society you belong to on this issue and to let its leaders know how you feel. To get you started, here are links to web sites that contain relevant information. The first gets you to an article that appeared in IEEE Spectrum http://www.spectrum. ieee.org/WEBONLY/wonews/oct03/1003ofac.html. The second is a web site containing a petition against the IEEE position. I am told this petition was written by Michel Gevers, Bob Bitmead and Brian Anderson and can be found at http:// www.csam.ucl.ac.be/IEEE_Petition.pl. You might also want to read Mike Masten's article in this newsletter. I would like to hear your suggestions about how we might improve the AACC and its conferences.

William S. Levine
President, AACC 2004-2005

Global Concerns XXX

Global terrorism has become a serious concern for much of the world. As a result, most countries have upgraded and strengthened their security procedures to hopefully better protect their citizens. Inevitably, some of these precautions result in restrictions for organizations - and citizens - that operate within the country.

As I am writing this note, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is currently facing such restrictions. Last fall (2003), the U.S. Treasury Department informed the IEEE that it must continue to limit member's rights in countries that have been embargoed by the USA. The ruling prevents the IEEE from editing articles submitted by authors from the embargoed countries; although publication of articles is not prohibited per se, the restriction against editing greatly diminishes the likelihood that work of authors from the embargoed countries will appear in IEEE publications. In addition, members in the embargoed countries are prohibited from election to higher-grade IEEE membership, using IEEE e-mail aliases & web accounts, or conducting conferences under the IEEE name. (Members still receive printed journals and other publications.) It is not surprising that IEEE has received protests from members within the embargoed countries as well as other IEEE members concerned about fairness and free speech. Although the IEEE has received adverse press coverage, the fact is that the rules apply to any USA professional society having exchange with the embargoed countries. Some organizations have taken even stronger measures and are refusing to even send their publications to the sanctioned countries.

The IEEE is obviously unhappy about its situation, and has been working with the Treasury Department over two years in an attempt to achieve a satisfactory resolution. We certainly fault neither the IEEE nor the U.S. Treasury Department. Indeed, we applaud the efforts of both organizations as they struggle with this challenge, and we hope that a satisfactory resolution may soon be realized.

The IFAC Model

The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) is organized and operates in different circumstances. As a federation, IFAC is a voluntary association, or alliance of otherwise autonomous organizations that affiliate with each other in support of common objectives. Each IFAC National Member Organization (NMO) represents engineering societies concerned with automatic control within its own country, yet each NMO has agreed to abide by well defined IFAC procedures for organizing & conducting technical meetings, for developing publications (publishing journals), and conducting other activities that promote the global advancement of automatic control. This is a two-way street: IFAC, as the central association, reviews and approves the activities which each NMO will undertake in the name of IFAC, but does not dictate detailed policies regarding how the NMOs conduct their operations nor any other activity that is outside the areas of agreement central to the IFAC federation. Each NMO is obviously subject to the laws and regulations of their own country, but each NMO is totally independent of every other NMO in the specific manner by which it conducts its operations, which have been "approved" by IFAC.

The "local" laws under which one NMO must operate within its own country are not obligations of any other NMO in another country. As a result, when an IFAC meeting is organized and conducted within the USA by the USA NMO, the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), we obviously must comply with USA laws and regulations, but these regulations do not necessarily apply to IFAC meetings organized by other NMOs and held in Europe, Asia, nor anywhere else. Clearly, USA regulations may restrict the entrance into the USA by citizens from selected countries, and we as USA citizens may sometimes face similar restrictions when we seek to attend IFAC events in another country. But these regulations apply only to each specific situation, and the IFAC federation is not affected by these local regulations.

IFAC was in fact organized and initiated (in 1956-1957) in this decentralized structure partly in response to situations similar to what we have today. Those were the days of the "cold war" following World War II when certain interactions between the East and the West were generally prohibited. However, the IFAC pioneers believed that political situations should not unnecessarily prevent sharing and cooperation regarding basic control system technology. This cooperative spirit is evident in the IFAC Constitution, which identifies the primary objective, "to serve all those concerned with the theory and application of automatic control and systems engineering, wherever situated …" (italics used to emphasize IFAC's global perspective.) The constitution further states that IFAC will "provide a framework for collaboration between those working in automatic control and systems engineering, irrespective of race, creed, or colour or of geographic location …". The constitution charges the NMOs with "responsibility for furthering the aims and objectives of IFAC within their respective countries" and notes that IFAC meetings are to be hosted and sponsored within the countries of each NMO who "take financial and administrative responsibility for the organization and conduct of the meeting."

Almost 50 years of IFAC history now shows the success of the IFAC model. A West German university underwrote the operating expenses of the first IFAC Secretariat, while Switzerland hosted the Treasurer & bank accounts, and the first two IFAC Presidents were from the USA and the Soviet Union respectively. Over subsequent years, IFAC meetings have been held in virtually the entire world in countries with drastically different types of national governments & cultures. Some of these meeting have been held during especially turbulent political times. IFAC's past presidents have come from the USA, Soviet Union, China, Japan, Australia, and several Eastern and Western European nations. Likewise, a review of past IFAC officers clearly shows that IFAC has been able to remain subject to local regulations and at the same time, to actively promote the advancement of our technology by using the services of citizens from every nation. Over the years, many USA citizens have attended IFAC meetings behind the Iron Curtain of the Soviet Union (and its satellite nations) as well as other nations without interference. Similar visits to the USA have been made from citizens of many other nations. Clearly, IFAC has been able to support and foster international cooperation in spite of sometimes conflicting political situations.

Mike Masten
IFAC Council Member