Welcome message from the chair

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the homepage of IFAC TC4.1. – on Components and Technologies for Control, one of the important TCs of our International Federation.

In this Technical Committee we have selected experts interested in design, analysis and evaluation of different components (sensors, actuators, instruments and controllers) and embedded devices for control, measurements and sensing applications.

We are interested to create and develop new components and new technologies, networked control systems for a large variety of applications.

A special attention we will pay to intelligent components and systems, from conception to implementation, considering all the problems imposed by actuators, sensors and robustness of controllers in the presence of large uncertainties of mathematical models of the controlled processes.

We must work together with experts in computers and communications, in order to develop a new generation of Cyber-Physical Systems with real impact on science and technology.

I propose to include in our portfolio of activities and actions:

-          Intelligent embedded controllers with all aspects, from conception, design, manufacturing, application and maintenance

-          Smart sensors integrated into a plant-wide multi-sensor system allowing to provide data fusion and additional virtual instruments

-          Sensor and actuators networks included into large complex systems with validation of all information

-          Microsystems: micro- and nano-technologies can serve as demonstrations for what can be accomplished by integrated information processing capabilities at the component level and can be implemented as a basic element for intelligent components

-          Adaptive and dynamic self-organization of control systems, including different components and technologies, hardware and software

-          Diagnosis and self-diagnosis: intelligent components can supervise themselves and are tightly integrated into a plant wide management system. Smart sensors and smart actuators will be included into a safe and reliable control system.

Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) integration of computers communication and control of physical processes will create a new generation of intelligent complex systems. Taking into consideration the heterogeneity of components with different dynamics, even delays of communication networks, we need to develop a new theory to analyze and design such complex systems.

I invite you to actively participate and to work together in these exciting research directions, to promote new theories, new components and technologies for control applications. 

In order to have a more efficient cooperation, based on common research interests, I propose to create workgroups on concrete and more specific topics, as:

• Intelligent Components for Control

• Integration and Co-operation of intelligent components in large scale, complex systems, as intelligent CPS

• Modeling and design methodologies for CPS

• Diagnosis and self-diagnosis of compoenents and integrated systems

I kindly invite TC members not only to join these workgroups, but also to propose new domains of interest and to actively promote them in the TC framework.

I would appreciate any initiative to organize workshops, seminars, symposiums on these thematic and I also encourage all of you to organize invited sessions on different scientific events.

We can organize as a main sponsor different IFAC events and I propose to analyze the following topics:

-          Intelligent Control Systems (the first edition of an workshop with this topics was organized in Romania in 2010);

-          Intelligent Embedded Control Devices and Applications;

-          Smart Sensors and Actuators;

-          Bio-inspired Sensors and Actuators in Robotics;

-          Autonomous Control Systems;

-          Intelligent and Interoperable Communication Systems;

-          Cyber-Physical Systems (a dedicated IFAC Conference)

All these events and others should be organized by our committee with co-sponsorships of other TCs.

I hope you are interested in these topics and I am waiting for your new ideas and proposals to improve our activity. I believe in our community to have a real contribution in this very important domain of IFAC activity.

I am looking for a real cooperation and I hope to meet you as soon as possible in different IFAC events and in a special meeting of our Technical Committee.

Best regards,

Ioan DUMITRACHE