IEEE CONTROL SYSTEMS SOCIETY TECHNICAL COMMITTEE
ON DISCRETE EVENT SYSTEMS

    Ryan J. Leduc
    Chair, IEEE CSS Technical Committee on DES
    Dept. of Computing and Software
    McMaster University
    1280 Main Street West
    Hamilton, Ontario
    Canada L8S 4K1

    Phone: (905) 525-9140 Ext. 27962
    Fax: (905) 524-0340
    e-mail: leduc@mcmaster.ca
    WWW: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~leduc/

DESTC Web Page: http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/destc/

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To submit news items and articles to this newsletter, go here.

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Contents:

1. Editorial

2. Announcements
 2.1 Launch of the DES Oline Research Resource Database
 2.2 IFAC Proceedings going on-line

3. Books
 3.1 Impulsive and Hybrid Dynamical Systems: Stability, Dissipativity, and
     Control", by Wassim M. Haddad, VijaySekhar Chellaboin

4. Conferences
 4.1 CPN'07 - Eighth Workshop and Tutorial on Practical Use of Coloured
     Petri Nets and CPN Tools, Aarhus, Denmark, October 22 - 24,
     2007
 4.2 PETRI NETS 2007 - 28th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON APPLICATION AND
     THEORY OF PETRI NETS AND OTHER MODELS OF CONCURRENCY, Siedlce,
     Poland, June 25 - 29, 2007
 4.3 2008 American Control Conference, Seattle, Washington, USA, June 11
     - 13, 2008
 4.4 FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL ALLERTON CONFERENCE
     ON COMMUNICATION, CONTROL, AND COMPUTING, Urbana-Champaign,
     Illinois, USA, September 26 - 28, 2007

5. Journals
 5.1 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Volume: 52,
     Issue: 5, May 2007
 5.2 Selections from Automatica, Volume 43, Issue 7, July 2007

Welcome to the newsletter of the IEEE Control Systems Technical Committee on Discrete Event Systems!

See http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/destc/ for information on the DESTC.

Personal note from the editor:

Welcome to the June 2007 edition of the DESTC newsletter. Of
particular interest is the launch of the DES Online Research Resource
Database (ORRD).  The committee has been working hard on putting this
new website together, and we hope that you will find it useful.

It is intended to be a one stop place to search for DES related
written resources such as conference and journal papers, theses,
books, and technical reports.  It is also intended to provide a
central means to announce the availability of such resources, and add
their bibliographical information to the database.  Users can
subscribe to weekly e-mail announcements that satisfy their search
criteria with respect to new items added to the database.

The ORRD is community based, so I hope that you will all support it so
it can be a valuable resource to us all.  See the announcement below
for more details.

Ryan

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc aT mcmaster dOt ca>

LAUNCH OF THE DES OLINE RESEARCH RESOURCE DATABASE

Have you ever wondered how many DES related conference papers are
published each year that you may never see as you weren't at the
conference?   Or how many DES theses and technical reports that you
have never heard of? Or for that matter, resources published in a
language you can't read?  What about DES related papers presented at
non DES conferences that are application specific?

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one place to go to announce your
work, and be sure that you reach a large number of DES researchers? 

Wouldn't it be nice to have one place to go to search for DES related
resources that was current and comprehensive?  That made it easy for
you to locate the resource, and get its  bibliographical
information?

Wouldn't it be nice if you received a weekly e-mail to let you know
whenever a new DES related resource was available?

These are the issues that drove the creation of the DES Online
Research Resource Database (ORRD) website.

The purpose is to create a community based central source for written
resources (such as conference/journal papers, theses, books, technical
reports) for discrete-event system research. The Online Research
Resource Database application will provide a searchable database with a
web front end to access the database and for its
administration. Access to the database as well as submission of
resources will be open to the entire DES community.  The primary
purpose of the database is to provide a comprehensive, searchable
source for DES related resources. To provide accurate bibliographical
information for the resources and to provide information on how to
obtain a copy of the resource. The ORRD also provides a weekly e-mail
announcement for newly added resources tailored to the users search
criteria. You can also select resources after doing a search, and
export them to BibTex format.

If you want a detailed discussion on what  an ORRD offers and how to
use it, see the PDF file:
http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~desorrd/ORRDIntro.pdf

An excellent starting place is the ORRD's help page that can be
accessed from the ORRD's home page given below.

Anyone can search the database. You need to create an account to
submit a resource (bibliographical information for the thesis etc.),
save your search criteria, and to sign up for weekly e-mail
announcements for new submissions that satisfy your search
criteria. If no new submissions, no e-mail is sent.

Full members can edit a resource to correct errors, add additional 
information, or add keywords to improve searches.  Initially, new
resources are marked as approved, as their bibliographical information
could contain errors. When a full member cites the resource, they will
need to double check this information, and then they can mark the
resource as verified (bibliographical information, not theory) so
others don't have to check it as well. 

Any full member can invite (click "send invitation" when logged in)
someone else to become a full member.  If the person is interested in
DES research and you believe they will act responsibly towards the
database, then feel free to offer them full membership.  

Later today, I will send a full member invite e-mail to everyone on
this list. The e-mail will contain information on how to create your
account.  If you don't wish a membership, just ignore the e-mail. If
you don't receive your invite in a week, then send me an e-mail.

Right now, the ORRD only contains a few papers that I have entered
myself.  I hope that everyone will make an effort to enter all of
their future papers/theses/tech reports/books into the ORRD when they
become available, so that the ORRD will become a comprehensive
database of all future items. As we can all submit our own work, we
as a community have the ability to ensure the database is accurate,
comprehensive, and up to date. This can be an invaluable tool if we all
support it. 

I also hope that over time you (or an assistant) will all enter in
much of your back catalog of papers/theses/reports etc so that the
ORRD will also contain most of the historical DES related resources.
You may wish to set your e-mail announcement search criteria for
resources published after a certain year if you are only interested in
announcements for recent resources.

Feel free to enter in related resources that you feel would be of
interest to other DES researchers. Examples might be a paper on a
system that would be a suitable application for DES, a book on binary
decision diagrams, a math book with useful theory etc.

DES ORRD website:  http://www.cas.mcmaster.ca/~desorrd/

Ryan Leduc
DESTC Chair

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc At mcmaster dOt ca>

IFAC PROCEEDINGS GOING ON-LINE

IFAC, the International Federation of Automatic Control, has announced
that all the papers presented at IFAC technical meetings (Congresses,
Symposia, Conferences and Workshops) will be published as electronic
 Proceedings on its new website IFAC-PapersOnLine.net, starting this 
year. The papers on this website will be searchable, citable, and 
downloadable by individuals at no cost.

The new IFAC publication policy will give enhanced visibility to
authors presenting their papers at IFAC meetings, by providing them
with open worldwide distribution and advancing publication time 
over conventional printed Proceedings.

The IFAC-PapersOnLine.net will be maintained and operated in
cooperation with Elsevier, the IFAC Publisher.

For further information, see the IFAC web site
(http://www.ifac-control.org) or the IFAC-PapersOnLine.net site.

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc At mcmaster dOt ca>

IMPULSIVE AND HYBRID DYNAMICAL SYSTEMS: STABILITY, DISSIPATIVITY, AND
CONTROL

Wassim M. Haddad, VijaySekhar Chellaboin
Princeton Series in Applied Mathematics,, 2006
ISBN 0-691-12715-8
http://www.pupress.princeton.edu/titles/8340.html

This book develops a general analysis and control synthesis framework
for impulsive and hybrid dynamical systems. Such a framework is
imperative for modern complex engineering systems that involve
interacting continuous-time and discrete-time dynamics with multiple
modes of operation that place stringent demands on controller design
 and require implementation of increasing complexity--whether advanced
high-performance tactical fighter aircraft and space vehicles,
variable-cycle gas turbine engines, or air and ground transportation
systems.

Impulsive and Hybrid Dynamical Systems goes beyond similar treatments
by developing invariant set stability theorems, partial stability,
Lagrange stability, boundedness, ultimate boundedness, dissipativity theory,
vector dissipativity theory, energy-based hybrid control, optimal control,
disturbance rejection control, and robust control for nonlinear
impulsive and hybrid dynamical systems. A major contribution to mathematical system
theory and control system theory, this book is written from a system-theoretic
point of view with the highest standards of exposition and rigor. It is
intended for graduate students, researchers, and practitioners of engineering and
applied mathematics as well as computer scientists, physicists, and other
scientists who seek a fundamental understanding of the rich dynamical behavior of
impulsive and hybrid dynamical systems.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1 Impulsive and Hybrid Dynamical Systems
1.2 A Brief Outline of the Monograph

Chapter 2. Stability Theory for Nonlinear Impulsive Dynamical Systems
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Nonlinear Impulsive Dynamical Systems
2.3 Stability Theory of Impulsive Dynamical Systems
2.4 An Invariance Principle for State-Dependent Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
2.5 Necessary and Sufficient Conditions for Quasi-Continuous Dependence
2.6 Invariant Set Theorems for State-Dependent Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
2.7 Partial Stability of State-Dependent Impulsive Dynamical Systems
2.8 Stability of Time-Dependent Impulsive Dynamical Systems
2.9 Lagrange Stability, Boundedness, and Ultimate Boundedness
2.10 Stability Theory via Vector Lyapunov Functions

Chapter 3. Dissipativity Theory for Nonlinear Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
3.1 Introduction
3.2 Dissipative Impulsive Dynamical Systems: Input-Output and State
Properties
3.3 Extended Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov Conditions for Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
3.4 Specialization to Linear Impulsive Dynamical Systems

Chapter 4. Impulsive Nonnegative and Compartmental Dynamical Systems
4.1 Introduction
4.2 Stability Theory for Nonlinear Impulsive Nonnegative Dynamical
Systems
4.3 Impulsive Compartmental Dynamical Systems
4.4 Dissipativity Theory for Impulsive Nonnegative Dynamical Systems
4.5 Specialization to Linear Impulsive Dynamical Systems

Chapter 5. Vector Dissipativity Theory for Large-Scale Impulsive
Dynamical
Systems
5.1 Introduction
5.2 Vector Dissipativity Theory for Large-Scale Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
5.3 Extended Kalman-Yakubovich-Popov Conditions for Large- Scale
Impulsive Dynamical Systems
5.4 Specialization to Large-Scale Linear Impulsive Dynamical Systems

Chapter 6. Stability and Feedback Interconnections of Dissipative
Impulsive Dynamical Systems
6.1 Introduction
6.2 Stability of Feedback Interconnections of Dissipative Impulsive
Dynamical Systems
6.3 Hybrid Controllers for Combustion Systems
6.4 Feedback Interconnections of Nonlinear Impulsive Nonnegative
Dynamical Systems
6.5 Stability of Feedback Interconnections of Large-Scale Impulsive
Dynamical Systems

Chapter 7. Energy-Based Control for Impulsive Port-Controlled
Hamiltonian Systems
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Impulsive Port-Controlled Hamiltonian Systems
7.3 Energy-Based Hybrid Feedback Control
7.4 Energy-Based Hybrid Dynamic Compensation via the Energy-Casimir
Method
7.5 Energy-Based Hybrid Control Design

Chapter 8. Energy and Entropy-Based Hybrid Stabilization for Nonlinear
Dynamical Systems
8.1 Introduction
8.2 Hybrid Control and Impulsive Dynamical Systems
8.3 Hybrid Control Design for Dissipative Dynamical Systems
8.4 Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Dynamical Systems
8.5 Hybrid Control Design for Euler-Lagrange Systems
8.6 Thermodynamic Stabilization
8.7 Energy-Dissipating Hybrid Control Design
8.8 Energy-Dissipating Hybrid Control for Impulsive Dynamical Systems
8.9 Hybrid Control Design for Nonsmooth Euler-Lagrange Systems
8.10 Hybrid Control Design for Impact Mechanics

Chapter 9. Optimal Control for Impulsive Dynamical Systems
9.1 Introduction
9.2 Impulsive Optimal Control
9.3 Inverse Optimal Control for Nonlinear Affine Impulsive Systems
9.4 Nonlinear Hybrid Control with Polynomial and Multilinear
Performance Functionals
9.5 Gain, Sector, and Disk Margins for Optimal Hybrid Regulators
9.6 Inverse Optimal Control for Impulsive Port-Controlled Hamiltonian
Systems

Chapter 10. Disturbance Rejection Control for Nonlinear Impulsive
Dynamical Systems
10.1 Introduction
10.2 Nonlinear Impulsive Dynamical Systems with Bounded Disturbances
10.3 Specialization to Dissipative Impulsive Dynamical Systems with
Quadratic Supply Rates
10.4 Optimal Controllers for Nonlinear Impulsive Dynamical Systems with
Bounded Disturbances
10.5 Optimal and Inverse Optimal Nonlinear-Nonquadratic Control for
Affine Systems with L2 Disturbances

Chapter 11. Robust Control for Nonlinear Uncertain Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
11.1 Introduction
11.2 Robust Stability Analysis of Nonlinear Uncertain Impulsive
Dynamical Systems
11.3 Optimal Robust Control for Nonlinear Uncertain Impulsive Dynamical
Systems
11.4 Inverse Optimal Robust Control for Nonlinear Affine Uncertain
Impulsive
Dynamical Systems
11.5 Robust Nonlinear Hybrid Control with Polynomial Performance
Functionals

Chapter 12. Hybrid Dynamical Systems
12.1 Introduction
12.2 Left-Continuous Dynamical Systems
12.3 Specialization to Hybrid and Impulsive Dynamical Systems
12.4 Stability Analysis of Left-Continuous Dynamical Systems
12.5 Dissipative Left-Continuous Dynamical Systems: Input-Output and
State Properties
12.6 Interconnections of Dissipative Left-Continuous Dynamical Systems

Chapter 13. Poincare Maps and Stability of Periodic Orbits for Hybrid
Dynamical Systems
13.1 Introduction
13.2 Left-Continuous Dynamical Systems with Periodic Solutions
13.3 Specialization to Impulsive Dynamical Systems
13.4 Limit Cycle Analysis of a Verge and Foliot Clock Escapement
13.5 Modeling
13.6 Impulsive Differential Equation Model
13.7 Characterization of Periodic Orbits
13.8 Limit Cycle Analysis of the Clock Escapement Mechanism
13.9 Numerical Simulation of an Escapement Mechanism

Appendix A. System Functions for the Clock Escapement Mechanism
Bibliography
Index

Contributed by: Mariagrazia Dotoli <dotoli@deemail.poliba.it>

CPN'07 - EIGHTH WORKSHOP AND TUTORIAL ON PRACTICAL USE OF COLOURED
PETRI NETS AND CPN TOOLS
Aarhus, Denmark
October 22 - 24, 2007

Call for papers

Coloured Petri Nets and CPN Tools are now used by more than 5000 
users in 127 different countries. The purpose of this event is to 
bring together some of the users and in this way provide a forum for 
those who are interested in the practical use of Coloured Petri Nets 
and CPN Tools.

The programme will consist of:
- Presentations of projects in which Coloured Petri Nets and CPN Tools
  have been put to practical use.
- Presentations of improvements and extensions of CPN Tools.
- Tutorials on new features of CPN Tools, including:
- One or more sessions in which participants can give a brief 
presentation of one of their CPN models and get feedback from other 
participants and  members of the CPN group.
- Presentations of a number of new CPN projects at the University of 
Aarhus.


Submissions

We hereby solicit submissions for the workshop. Each submission 
should present a CPN project, a CPN Tools improvement/extension, or 
other materials relevant for the workshop. It must have the form of a 
10-20 page paper, provided either as a PostScript file or a PDF 
document. Submissions should be sent to: CPNworkshop@daimi.au.dk 
before August 15, 2007. 

The workshop proceedings will appear as a technical report of the 
Department of Computer Science, University of Aarhus. It will also be 
available in electronic form via the CPN web pages at the University 
of Aarhus. Finally, we plan to publish the best papers in a high-
quality international journal (after an additional round of 
reviewing). 


Program committee

The submissions will be evaluated by an international programme 
committee with the following members: 
Wil M. P. van der Aalst, Netherlands 
João Paulo Barros, Portugal 
Jonathan Billington, Australia 
Jörg Desel, Germany 
Joao M. Fernandes, Portugal 
Jorge de Figueiredo, Brazil 
Monika Heiner, Germany 
Thomas Hildebrandt, Denmark 
Kurt Jensen, Denmark (chair) 
Ekkart Kindler, Germany 
Lars M. Kristensen, Denmark 
Johan Lilius, Finland 
Daniel Moldt, Germany 
Laure Petrucci, France 
Rüdiger Valk, Germany 
Lee Wagenhals, USA 
Jianli Xu, Finland 
Karsten Wolf, Germany 


Submissions for presentations of CPN models

As mentioned above there will be one or more sessions in which 
participants can give a brief presentation of one of their CPN models 
and get feedback from other participants and members of the CPN 
group. Submissions for presentation of CPN models should be sent to 
CPNworkshop@daimi.au.dk before October 1. They must contain a 3-5 
page description of the modelling project (with a few typical modules 
from the model). The presentation at the conference can be combined 
with a poster or a short paper which will be distributed to the 
participants. 


Deadlines

Deadline for submissions: August 15, 2007 
Notification of acceptance: September 15, 2007 
Deadline for final papers: October 5, 2007 
Deadline for registration: October 1, 2007 


Further information

URL: http://www.daimi.au.dk/CPnets/workshop07/ 
E-mail: CPNworkshop@daimi.au.dk 


Invited Tutorials

Title to be Announced 
Ekkart Kindler, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen 

Results from a new State Space Project: ASCoVeCo 
Lars M. Kristensen, CPN Group Univesity of Aarhus (ASCoVeCo)

web site: click here

Contributed by: Mariagrazia Dotoli <dotoli@deemail.poliba.it>

PETRI NETS 2007 - 28TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON APPLICATION AND
THEORY OF PETRI NETS AND OTHER MODELS OF CONCURRENCY
Siedlce, Poland
June 25 - 29, 2007

The 28th annual international Petri Net conference and tutorials will 
be organised by the Institute of Computer Science at the University 
of Podlasie and Institute of Computer Science of the Polish Academy 
of Sciences. Papers presenting original contributions in any area of 
application and theory of Petri nets are sought. The language of the 
conference is English. 

Topics
System design and verification using nets, 
Analysis and synthesis, structure and behaviour of nets, 
Relationships between net theory and other approaches, 
Causality/partial order theory of concurrency, 
Net-based semantical, logical and algebraic calculi, 
Symbolic net representation (graphical or textual), 
Computer tools for nets, 
Experience with using nets, case studies, 
Educational issues related to nets, 
Higher-level net models, 
Timed and stochastic nets, 
Standardisation of nets,  Applications of nets to different kinds of 
systems and application fields, e.g.: flexible manufacturing systems, 
real-time systems, embedded systems, defence systems, biological 
systems, health and medical systems, environmental systems, hardware 
structures, telecommunications, railway networks, office automation, 
workflows, supervisory control, protocols and networks, Internet, e-
commerce and trading, programming languages, performance evaluation, 
operations research.  

The conference takes place under the auspices of EATCS and GI 
SIG "Petri Nets and Related System Models". 


Tutorials and Workshops
The conference takes place Wednesday to Friday. However, the 
surrounding days also offer a large variety of Petri net activities. 
The Introductory Tutorial is offered to participants who have little 
or no prior experience with Petri nets. The talks give an overview of 
the area, and they will help new-comers to understand the basic ideas 
in many of the conference contributions. The Advanced Tutorials and 
Workshops are offered to those who already have some knowledge of 
Petri nets. They are divided into several strands covering different 
subjects. A detailed description of the tutorials and workshops will 
be available via the conference web pages. 

Finally, it will be possible to arrange meetings for different 
groups, e.g., participants in international Petri net projects. It 
will also be possible to arrange small educational courses, e.g., 
with respect to some of the Petri net tools. Submissions for such 
activities must contain a 2-5 page description. They must be received 
by one of the PC-chairs no later than January 15, 2007. 

We invite proposals for workshops and tutorials for the 2008 
conference. 

The purpose of workshops is to provide a setting to discuss technical 
issues and exchange research ideas in specific theoretical or 
application areas. We encourage a diversity of workshops related to 
Petri nets. Selected papers of the workshops will appear in a new 
subseries of LNCS entitled "Transactions on Petri Nets and other 
models of Concurrency" (ToPNoC). 

The purpose of tutorials is to introduce researchers to a new or 
emerging area or to provide deeper insight into a particular topic 
within Petri nets or related areas, ranging from theory to industrial 
applications. Tutorial levels may be introductory, intermediate, or 
advanced. 

Workshop and tutorial proposals for the 2008 conference should be 
submitted before June 1, 2007 to the Workshop and Tutorial Committee 
(Wil van der Aalst, Jonathan Billington, and Susanna Donatelli). 

Tool Exhibition
A 2-3 hour exhibition of Petri net tools takes place Tuesday or 
Wednesday evening. It consists of informal demonstrations for small 
groups/individuals, and there are no scheduled talks. Requests for 
participation in the tool exhibition must be sent to the Tool 
Exhibition Chair before June 1, 2007. They should include a link to 
the web pages for the tool (or a short description of the tool). The 
demonstrators usually bring their own machines, but the organisers 
may be requested to give access to the Internet. 

Program Committee
J. Billington, Australia 
D. Buchs, Switzerland 
J.M. Colom, Spain 
R. Devillers, Belgium 
S. Donatelli, Italy 
J.C.A. de Figueiredo, Brazil 
G. Franceschinis, Italy 
L. Gomes, Portugal 
B. Haverkort, The Netherlands 
X. He, USA 
K. van Hee, The Netherlands 
M. Heiner, Germany 
K. Hiraishi, Japan 
C. Jard, France 
G. Juhas, Slovak Republic 
P. Kemper, USA 
V. Khomenko, UK  J. Kleijn, The Netherlands (co-chair) 
L.M. Kristensen, Denmark 
J. Lilius, Finland 
C. Lin, China 
R. Lorenz, Germany 
P. Moreaux, France 
W. Penczek, Poland 
L. Petrucci, France 
M. Pinna, Italy 
L. Pomello, Italy 
L. Recalde, Spain 
T. Ushio, Japan 
R. Valk, Germany 
F. Vernadat, France 
K. Wolf, Germany 
A. Yakovlev, UK (co-chair)    

Steering Committee
W. van der Aalst, The Netherlands 
J. Billington, Australia 
J. Desel, Germany 
S. Donatelli, Italy 
S. Haddad, France 
K. Jensen, Denmark (chair) 
H.C.M. Kleijn, The Netherlands 
M. Koutny, UK  S. Kumagai, Japan 
T. Murata, USA 
C.A. Petri, Germany (honorary member) 
L. Pomello, Italy 
W. Reisig, Germany 
G. Rozenberg, The Netherlands 
M. Silva, Spain 
A. Yakovlev, UK  

Online registration is open.

The hotel reservation and the payment service is available after the 
registration. The hotel cost is 30-50 euro per day, including meals 
(guaranteed till June 1, 2007). 


Important Dates: 
Early registration: Extended to June 1, 2007 
Tutorials & Workshops:	June 25-26, 2007 
Conference: June 27-29, 2007

web site: click here

Contributed by: Mariagrazia Dotoli <dotoli@deemail.poliba.it>

2008 AMERICAN CONTROL CONFERENCE
Seattle, Washington, USA
June 11 - 13, 2008

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.

Pre-conference 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. It 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, kids 
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

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc At mcmaster dOt ca>

FORTY-FIFTH ANNUAL ALLERTON CONFERENCE
ON COMMUNICATION, CONTROL, AND COMPUTING
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois, USA
September 26 - 28, 2007

The Forty-Fifth Annual Allerton Conference on Communication, Control,
and Computing will be held from Wednesday, September 26 through Friday,
September 28, 2007, at Allerton House, the conference center of the
University of Illinois. Allerton House is located twenty-six miles
southwest of the Urbana-Champaign campus of the University in a wooded
area on the Sangamon River. It is part of the fifteen-hundred acre
Robert Allerton Park, a complex of natural and man-made beauty
designated as a National natural landmark. Allerton Park has twenty
miles of well-maintained trails and a living gallery of formal gardens,
studded with sculptures collected from around the world.

Papers presenting original research are solicited in the areas of
communication systems, communication and computer networks, detection
and estimation theory, information theory, error control coding, source
coding and data compression, queueing networks, control systems, robust
and nonlinear control, adaptive control, optimization, dynamic games,
large- scale systems, robotics and automation, manufacturing systems,
discrete event systems, intelligent control, multivariable control,
computer vision-based control, learning theory, neural networks, VLSI
architectures for communications and signal processing, and automated
highway systems.

Plenary lecture: Professor John Tsitsiklis of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology will deliver this year's plenary lecture. It is
entitled "Decentralized detection with a tree of sensors." It is
scheduled for Friday, September 28, 2007.

Information for authors: Regular papers, suitable for presentation in
twenty minutes, as well as short papers, suitable for presentation in
ten minutes, are solicited. The purpose of the short paper category is
to encourage authors to present preliminary results of their work. Both
Regular and Short papers will be published in full (subject to a
maximum length of ten 8.5" x 11" pages) in the Conference Proceedings.

For reviewing purposes of regular papers, a title and a five to ten
page extended abstract, including references and sufficient detail to
permit careful reviewing, are required. For short papers, a title and a
three to five page summary are required. Manuscripts that are submitted
as regular papers but cannot be accommodated in that category will be
considered in the short paper category, unless the authors indicate
otherwise.

Manuscripts must be submitted by Sunday, July 1, 2007 following the
instructions at the Conference website: http://www.csl.uiuc.edu/allerton.

Authors will be notified of acceptance via e-mail by August 3, 2007, at
which time they will also be sent detailed instructions for the
preparation of their papers for the Proceedings.

A final version of presented papers must be submitted electronically
prior to the end of the Conference.

Conference Co-Chairs: Christoforos Hadjicostis and Pierre Moulin

Email: allerton@csl.uiuc.edu

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc At mcmaster dOt ca>

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
VOLUME: 52, ISSUE: 5
MAY, 2007

1) Receding Horizon Control for a Class of Discrete-Event Systems With
Real-Time Constraints

Miao, L.; Cassandras, C. G.

Abstract:

We consider discrete-event systems (DES) involving the control of tasks
with real-time constraints. When future event time information is
limited, we propose a receding horizon (RH) controller in which only
some future information is available within a time window. Analyzing
sample paths obtained under this scheme and comparing them to optimal
sample paths (obtained when all event times are known), we derive a
number of attractive properties of the RH controller, including: the
fact that it still guarantees all real-time constraints; there are
segments of its sample path over which all controls are still optimal;
the error relative to the optimal task departure times is decreasing
under certain conditions. Simulation results are included to verify the
properties of the controller and show that its performance can be
near-optimal even if the RH window size is relatively small

2)  Separable Dynamic Programming and Approximate Decomposition Methods

Bertsekas, D. P. 

Abstract:

We consider control, planning, and resource allocation problems
involving several independent subsystems that are coupled through a
control/decision constraint. We discuss one-step lookahead methods that
use an approximate cost-to-go function derived from the solution of
single subsystem problems. We propose a new method for constructing
such approximations, and derive bounds on the performance of the
associated suboptimal policies. We then specialize this method to
problems of reachability of target tubes that have the form of a box (a
Cartesian product of subsystem tubes). We thus obtain inner
approximating tubes, which are the union of a finite number of boxes,
each involving single subsystem calculations

3) Comments on "Feedback Min-Max MPC Algorithm for LPV Systems
Subject to Bounded Rates of Change of Parameters"

Ding, B.; Huang, B.

Abstract:

The commenters point out a major problem with the initialization stage
in the technique in the above article by Casavola et al. (see ibid.
vol. 47, no. 7, p. 1147-53, 2002)

web site: click here

Contributed by: Ryan Leduc <leduc At mcmaster dOt ca>

SELECTIONS FROM AUTOMATICA
VOLUME 43, ISSUE 7
JULY, 2007

1) Data-based supervisory control of uncertain systems with application
to automatic drug delivery for anesthesia

David Angeli, Claudia Manuelli and Edoardo Mosca

Abstract:

Control of nonlinear noisy systems affected by large uncertainties is
approached via the introduction of a supervisor which, whenever needed,
switches on, in feedback to the plant, a controller selected from a
finite set of precomputed controllers. A Lyapunov-based falsification
criterion allows one to ensure robust stability in the presence of
uncertain constant parameters and exogenous bounded disturbances
without a priori information on the system. Applicability of the method
is illustrated through simulations on an automatic drug delivery system
for anesthesia.

web site: click here