Workshop on Networked Embedded Sensing and Control (NESC'05)

choosing a career in control engineering. Petr Horacek of the Czech Technical University in Prague spoke about the increased role of automation in large industrial projects. Techniques for modeling, identification, real-time control, and supervision have been of interest to industry for decades. His talk described large industrial projects involving cooperation between academia and students of the Czech Technical University. The presentation summarized problems and techniques for modeling, simulation, and control in the glass industry (glass furnaces for fiberglass production), food industry (cheese production), and electrical power systems (maintenance of stability of power generation, transmission, and distribution in an open energy market). The potential for high school and university student involvement in industrial projects and project-driven education was discussed. Participants asked many questions during Petr’s presentation. Bozenna Pasik-Duncan of the University of Kansas spoke about stochastic control problems in telecommunications, finance, and medicine. Her presentation focused on modeling different types of noise in systems, and she discussed stochastic adaptive control problems with applications to epilepsy. Bozenna stressed that real-world problems have become more and more complex and that partnerships between mathematics and control engineering are necessary for solving these problems. Ljubo Vlacic of Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, spoke about cooperative driverless vehicles and their potential for increasing safety, reliability, and efficiency. He suggested that car crashes may become unthink-

Participants of the workshop. High school students and teachers from the Czech Republic were allowed unlimited access to the sessions of the IFAC World Congress.

able, while congestion will evaporate as computers take control of vehicles and decide the optimal route for maximal efficiency. While these goals are idealistic, there are clear benefits that intelligent vehicle technologies can provide. Thanks to developments in decision and control algorithms, intelligent vehicles are capable of undertaking cooperative driving maneuvers. Ongoing interaction between the presenters and the audience was an important feature of the workshop. The speakers did an excellent job of engaging the participants, who were inspired by the broad spectrum of control applications. The students discovered that control is everywhere, and they were excited to learn about its diverse applications. Due to the generosity of the organizers of the IFAC World Congress, the students were granted access to all

of the sessions at the Congress. It was a real joy to see the high school students through the entire week attending the sessions and “running” after speakers for more individual discussions. The workshop followed several related workshops organized by the CSS Committee on Control Education and supported by the National Science Foundation. These workshops have reached more than 1,000 U.S. high school students while generating considerable interest among high school teachers. It is expected that these workshops will continue to be held at major conferences. Through the workshop held at the 16th IFAC World Congress, the collaborative effort of the IFAC Committee on Control Education and the CSS Committee on Control Education has played an important international role in control education.

Workshop on Networked Embedded Sensing and Control (NESC’05) Bozenna Pasik-Duncan he Workshop on Networked Embedded Sensing and Control (NESC’05) was held at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, on 17–18 October 2005 (http://nesc.ee.nd.edu). The workshop brought together over 60 researchers working on different aspects

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of networked systems, such as sensing and estimation, control, coding/communications, and ad hoc networking. The modeling, analysis, and design of networked control systems require interdisciplinary approaches that draw results and ideas from several fields. These results and ideas are then com-

bined and extended while focusing on networked control problems. The first step toward this objective is the establishment of a conversation among researchers working on the most diverse aspects of networked embedded systems. The workshop acted both as a forum and as a catalyst for this conver-

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The beautiful weather did not stop the participants at NESC’05 from attending the interesting sessions on networked control problems.

sation. Different research experiences and results were exchanged among attendees, while concrete steps were taken toward establishing the scientific foundations and identifying the main scientific challenges. The topic of this workshop is directly related to the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control special issue on networked control systems, which appeared in September 2004, as well as the upcoming special issue on technology of networked control systems scheduled to appear in the fall of 2006 in the Proceedings of the IEEE. The two-day workshop was organized as a single-track event with 18 contributed papers centered around four invited plenary lectures. The plenary lectures were “Motion Coordination for Multi-Agent Networks” by Francesco Bullo (University of California at Santa Barbara); “Embedded Sensing and Control: Applications and Application Requirements” by Tariq Samad (Honeywell); “Control over Communication Networks: Impact of Delays on Performance” by Dawn Tilbury (University of Michigan); and “The Role of Information Theory in Communication Constrained Control Systems” by Sekhar Tatikonda (Yale University). The contributed papers, all of which were reviewed, will appear as a volume

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in the Lecture Notes in Control and Information series to be published by Springer in early 2006. These papers were presented in five sessions, namely, “Multi-Agent Control,” “Simulation and Implementation,” “Distributed Sensing,” and “Filtering and Estimation” on the first day, followed by “Control over Networks I” and “Control over Networks II” on the second day. There was a panel discussion at the end of the first day focusing on the connections between sensor/actuator networks, real-time computer systems, and unmanned autonomous vehicles. Invited panelists were Ashok Agrawala (University of Maryland), Phil Chandler (Wright-Patterson Air Force Base), and Emre Ertin (Ohio State University). The success of the workshop rests on the diligence and expertise of the program committee: John Baillieul (Boston University); Michael Branicky (Case Western Reserve University); Magnus Egerstedt (Georgia Institute of Technology); Nicola Elia (Iowa State University); Martin Haenggi (University of Notre Dame); João Hespanha (University of California at Santa Barbara); George J. Pappas (University of Pennsylvania); Sekhar Tatikonda (Yale University); and Dawn Tilbury (University of Michigan). The workshop was cosponsored by the Office of Research, the Center for

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Applied Mathematics, the Department of Electrical Engineering, and the H.C. and E.A. Brosey Endowed Chair fund of the University of Notre Dame as well as by the National Science Foundation EHS program. The workshop was also technically cosponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society. The meeting took place on the campus of the University of Notre Dame at the Hesburgh Center auditorium. Between lunch and work, the attendees enjoyed the beautiful autumn colors of the campus and learned more about the venue through a tour by experienced undergraduate guides, who deftly walked backwards throughout the tour. What emerged from this workshop was the importance of exploring the intersections among systems and control, information theory, communication networks, distributed and collaborative control, and real-time systems. At the same time, the workshop highlighted the necessity of incorporating the right assumptions in the theoretical results and addressed implementation issues that guide the development of algorithms. The workshop’s book of abstracts is available for download at the Web site http://nesc.ee.nd.edu. Panos Antsaklis and Paulo Tabuada Workshop Organizers