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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Contents:

1. Editorial

2. Announcements
 2.1 DES Call for contribution special issue JUCS
 2.2 DCDS 2009 special session on reconfiguration

3. Conferences
 3.1 DCDS'09 2nd IFAC WORKSHOP ON DEPENDABLE CONTROL OF DISCRETE
     SYSTEMS, Bari, Italy, June 10 - 12, 2009
 3.2 ADHS'09: 3rd IFAC Conference on Analysis and Design of Hybrid
     Systems, Zaragoza, Spain, September 16 - 18, 2009
 3.3 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and 28th Chinese Control
     Conference, Shanghai, China, December 16 - 18, 2009

4. Journals
 4.1 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Volume: 53,
      Issue: 8, September 2008
 4.2 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, Volume: 53,
      Issue: 9, October 2008
 4.3 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and
     Engineering, Volume: 5, Issue: 3, July 2008
 4.4 Selections from IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and
     Engineering, Volume: 5, Issue: 4, October 2008
 4.5 Selections from Automatica, Volume: 44, Issue: 10, October 2008

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 October 2008 edition of the DESTC newsletter,

Ryan 

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

DES CALL FOR CONTRIBUTION SPECIAL ISSUE JUCS

JUCS Special issue "Interactions of discrete-event control and computer
sciences"


Guest editors:

Eric Niel, INSA Lyon, Universite de Lyon (eric.niel@insa-lyon.fr)
Eric Rutten, INRIA Rhone-Alpes (Eric.Rutten@inria.fr)
Jean-Michel Muller, CNRS-LIP (CNRS, ENS Lyon, INRIA, Universite de
Lyon) (Jean-Michel.Muller@ens-lyon.fr)


The special issue focuses on the fruitful possible interactions between
discrete-event control and computer science, especially in the domain
of the modelling, analysis and control of real-time, reactive systems.

The topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

- Formalisms and modelling methodologies: Petri nets, state automata,
  statecharts, process algebras...
- Reactivity of discrete-event systems with emphasis on supervisory
  control, real time control and on mode management
- Performance evaluation, diagnosis, optimization and implementation
- Discrete approaches of hybrid, reactive and embedded systems
- Applications including transportation systems, distributed systems, 
  telecommunications, systems on chip, energy, manufacturing 
  systems ...
- Emerging applications in critical systems and related fields:
  performance assessment, on-line control, reconfiguration, mode
  management, safe control, fault-tolerant systems...
- Software tools enabling efficient handling of industrial-sized 
  systems.
- Validation techniques : verification, test generation, ...
- Specification and programming languages for describing discrete-event
  and reactive systems


Tentative dates:

- deadline for paper submission (full papers, in English): November 15,
  2008
- notification of acceptance: February 27, 2009

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

DCDS 2009 SPECIAL SESSION ON RECONFIGURATION

Dear colleagues,

We have the pleasure to organise a special session dealing with
"Reconfiguration for Discrete Events Control."

It will take place during the 2nd workshop on Dependable Control of
Discrete Systems in Bari, Italy, June 10-12, 2009.

Today, reconfigurable systems that have the ability to switch from one
configuration to another in order to answer a disturbance or a critical
requirement are a major evolution of systems. The aim of this session
is to provide academic and industrial researchers with an opportunity
to exchange about new developments linked to reconfiguration of
discrete event systems. Beside the reconfiguration process, this
session will open the discussion about the necessary means and methods
to ensure that delivered services stay available in spite of the
occurrence of a failure or of a priority switch' requirement.

This session will consider all works relating on the process of
reconfiguration and also to its evaluation and its implementation.
Works concerning properties, decision making, observers for
reconfiguration, operating modes management, automated control laws
design, monitoring, supervision and control of reconfigurable systems
are particularly concerned. Considered application areas are (but not
exclusively): manufacturing, transportation, embedded systems,
operational process, power transmission systems, sensor networks …

If you find some interest in this problematic, you are welcome to
contact us. Please send us before November 1st 2009 an acknowledgement
if your opinion is to propose a paper (indicate the title, the authors,
your location and an extended abstract about 3 usual size pages). We
will then contact you for more details about the organization of the
session. Thanks to send it to either eric.niel@insa-lyon.fr and
Pascal.Berruet@univ-ubs.fr in PDF format.


Further information on DCDS Congress can be obtained at the conference
web site: http://dcds09.poliba.it

Sincerely Yours,

Pascal Berruet
Eric Niel.

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

DCDS'09 2ND IFAC WORKSHOP ON DEPENDABLE CONTROL OF DISCRETE SYSTEMS
Bari, Italy
June 10 - 12, 2009

		      THIRD CALL FOR PAPERS
----------------------------------------------------------------------
  DCDS'09 2nd IFAC WORKSHOP ON DEPENDABLE CONTROL OF DISCRETE SYSTEMS
		    Palace Hotel, Bari, Italy 
			June 10-12, 2009 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
			   WEB SITE
		     http://dcds09.poliba.it/ 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sponsored by IFAC Technical Committee
- TC 1.3 Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems 
Co-sponsored by IFAC Technical Committees: 
- TC 4.1 Components and Technologies for Control
- TC 4.2 Mechatronic Systems
- TC 5.1 Manufacturing Plant Control
- TC 6.4 Safeprocess
Also sponsored by:
- IEEE
Under the patronage of:
- Regione Puglia, Italy
- SIDRA - Societa  Italiana Docenti e Ricercatori in Automatica
----------------------------------------------------------------------
AIMS AND SCOPE

The aim of the workshop is to provide the communities of 
safety/reliability analysis and of DES (Discrete Event Systems) with 
an opportunity to exchange information and new ideas, and to discuss 
new developments in the field of dependable control of DES. 
Researches in this field are driven by the needs of many different 
application domains, such as production systems, transport systems, 
embedded systems, computers and communication systems, to name a few.

Several research results recently issued by the two communities are 
able to bring partial solutions to dependability requirements of 
these application domains. Fault-forecasting methods for systems 
dependability, dependability modeling thanks to Bayesian networks, 
fault-tolerant systems design, formal verification of control 
software, timed and probabilistic model-checking, fault detection and 
diagnosis of DES for instance, provide promising solutions for 
increasing control systems dependability. Nevertheless, none of these 
approaches is able to provide a global solution. Hence, there is a 
need to bridge the gaps between the different models, methods and 
tools that are proposed so as to improve design and operation of 
dependable control of DES. 

Gathering researchers of these two communities, this workshop will 
favour exchanges and will contribute to a better interdisciplinary 
approach for control dependability improvement. Works focusing on 
dependability improvement when designing and implementing the system 
("off-line" approaches) as well as during system operation ("on-line" 
approaches) will be considered. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
TOPICS

The workshop will cover all topics related to specification, design, 
implementation and operation of dependable controllers for critical 
DES, including (but not limited to) the following: 

- Recent advances in fault-forecasting methods
- Formal methods for timed and probabilistic systems
- Modeling and analysis of stochastic systems
- Monitoring and diagnosis of discrete event systems
- Control of fault-tolerant discrete event systems
- Reconfiguration methods
- Interdisciplinary approaches for dependability improvement
- Applications to manufacturing and production systems, transport, 
  power plants, mechatronics and embedded systems
- Safety-critical systems
- System security
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SPECIAL SESSIONS 

Proposals for special sessions related to specification, design, 
implementation and operation of dependable controllers for critical 
discrete systems are encouraged.

A special session should consist of 4 to 6 papers in the format 
described for individual contributions and a one page abstract 
summarising the aim and content of the session. This abstract should 
contain: a title for the session, the name and full address of the 
session organizer, a list of keywords and the list of the papers 
included. Survey papers at the beginning of special sessions are 
encouraged. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
SUBMISSION OF PAPERS 

On-line electronic full paper submission is required (PDF files only 
are accepted). Papers must be submitted not later than January 8, 
2009 only by web server application : 
http://dcds09.poliba.it/ 

To be included in preprints and proceedings, papers are limited to 6 
pages and have to conform to IFAC instructions, which can be found at 
the following address: 
http://www.dit.upm.es/ifac-papersonline/instructions/ 

The copyright transfer form can be downloaded at the following 
address: 
http://dcds09.poliba.it/DCDS09/Papersubmission_files/IFAC%20Copyright%
20Form.doc 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IFAC COPYRIGHT POLICY 

The material submitted for presentation at an IFAC meeting (Congress, 
Symposium, Conference, Workshop) must be original, not published or 
being considered elsewhere. All papers accepted for presentation will 
appear in the Preprints of the meeting and will be distributed to the 
participants. Papers duly presented at the IFAC Congress, Symposia, 
Conferences and Workshops will be hosted on-line on the IFAC-
PapersOnLine.net website (www.ifac-papersonline.net/ ). The presented 
papers will be further screened for possible publication in the IFAC 
Journals (Automatica, Control Engineering Practice, Annual Reviews in 
Control, Journal of Process Control , Engineering Applications of 
Artificial Intelligence, and Mechatronics), or in IFAC affiliated 
journals. All papers presented will be recorded as an IFAC 
Publication. 

Copyright of material presented at an IFAC meeting is held by IFAC. 
Authors will be required to transfer copyrights electronically. The 
IFAC Journals and, after these, IFAC affiliated journals have 
priority access to all contributions presented. However, if the 
author is not contacted by an editor of these journals, within three 
months after the meeting, he/she is free to submit an expanded 
version of the presented material for journal publication elsewhere. 
In this case, the paper must carry a reference to the IFAC meeting 
where it was originally presented and, if the paper has appeared on 
the website www.ifac-papersonline.net/ , also a reference to this 
publication. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONFERENCE FEES 

Early registration fee 500 Euros (VAT included) 
Student registration fee 280 Euros (VAT included) 
Single day registration 250 Euros (VAT included) 
Early registration deadline April 15, 2009
Late registration fee 550 Euros (430 Euros for students) (VAT
included) 

Registration fees include lunches for the 3 days of the workshop, 
coffee breaks, a guided walking tour of the Bari old town and banquet 
(except for single day registration). Extra banquet tickets will be 
purchasable during the workshop. 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
IMPORTANT DATES 

Submission of full papers and special sessions: January 08, 2009 
Notification of acceptance: March 12, 2009 
Submission of final papers and registration: April 12, 2009 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM COMMITTEE 

Chairs: M.P. Fanti (IT), T.L. Johnson (USA) 
Vice-Chairs: A. Bobbio (IT), E. Schnieder (D) 
Industrial Vice-Chair: D. Wei (USA) 

Members: 
P. Aknin (France) 
H. Boudali (The Netherlands) 
E. Brinksma (The Netherlands) 
P. Chung (United Kingdom) 
J. Cury (Brazil) 
F. Di Giandomenico (Italy) 
M. Fabian (Sweden) 
L. Ferrarini (Italy) 
A. Giua (Italy) 
J. Gorski (Poland) 
M. Gribaudo (Italy) 
L. Holloway (USA) 
M. D. Jeng (Taiwan) 
S. Kowalewski (Germany) 
S. Lafortune (USA) 
B. Lennartson (Sweden) 
L. Litz (Germany) 
J. Lunze (Germany) 
J. Machado (Portugal) 
B. Maione (Italy) 
J. McDermid (UK) 
R. Minciardi (Italy) 
M. Muenchhof (Germany) 
G. Music (Slovenia) 
E. Niel (France) 
Y. Papadopoulos (UK) 
C. E. Pereira (Brasil) 
J. F. Petin (France) 
S. Ramaswamy (USA) 
S. Reveliotis (USA) 
J.M. Roussel (France) 
C. Seatzu (Italy) 
J. R. Silva (Brazil) 
M. Silva (Spain) 
T. Suzuki (Japan) 
M. Tomizuka (USA) 
B. Tuffin (France) 
L. Trave-Massuyes (France) 
B. Vogel-Heuser (Germany) 
V. Volovoi (USA) 
V. Vyatkin (New Zealand) 
J. Zaytoon (France) 
Q. Zhao (China) 
M. C. Zhou (USA) 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
STEERING COMMITTEE 

A. Bobbio (Italy) 
J. B. Dugan (USA) 
J. M. Faure (France) 
G. Frey (Germany) 
J.-J. Lesage (France) 
W. Reif (Germany) 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
NATIONAL ORGANIZING COMMITTEE 

Chair: M. Dotoli 
Industrial Vice-Chair: P. Larizza 

Members: 
G. Acciani
E. Di Sciascio
M. Falagario
M. P. Fanti
G. Iacobellis
M. La Scala
P. Lino
G. Maione
A. M. Mangini
S. Mascolo
C. Meloni
D. Naso
R. Pellegrino
A. Rizzo
M. Ruta
B. Turchiano
----------------------------------------------------------------------
VENUE â- SOCIAL ACTIVITIES 

The Workshop will be held in Bari, Italy, at the prestigious Palace 
Hotel, located in the city centre and nearby the old town. Hotel web 
site: http://www.palacehotelbari.it/ 

The banquet will take place in a prestigious place near the sea. 
A guided walking tour of the Bari old town will be included in the 
registration. 
A tour of the typical town Alberobello and a tour of the well-known 
Castellana caves will be organized during the conference (not 
included in the registration fee and organized upon reaching of a 
minimum number of participants). 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
CONFERENCE SECRETARIAT 

DCDS'09
DEE - Politecnico di Bari
200, via Re David
70125 Bari, Italy
Phone: +39 080 5963643 Fax: +39 080 5963410
http://dcds09.poliba.it/ 
For inquiries, email conference secretariat at: 
dcds09@deemail.poliba.it 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Maria Pia Fanti
DCDS'09 International Program Committee Chair
DEE - Politecnico di Bari
200, via Re David
70125 Bari, Italy
Phone: +39 080 5963643 Fax: +39 080 5963410
email fanti@deemail.poliba.it 

Mariagrazia Dotoli
DCDS'09 National Organizing Committee Chair
DEE - Politecnico di Bari
200, via Re David
70125 Bari, Italy
Phone: +39 080 5963667 Fax: +39 080 5963410
email dotoli@deemail.poliba.it 
----------------------------------------------------------------------

web site: click here

Contributed by: Cristian Mahulea <cmahulea@unizar.es>

ADHS'09: 3RD IFAC CONFERENCE ON ANALYSIS AND DESIGN OF HYBRID SYSTEMS
Zaragoza, Spain
September 16 - 18, 2009

	       Submission Deadline: March 26, 2009
	      http://diisconf.cps.unizar.es/adhs09
 

SCOPE AND TOPICS
The IFAC conference series on Analysis and Design of Hybrid Systems
(ADHS) is focused on the Automation of Dynamical Systems. ADHS'09 is
the third conference of this series, after ADHS'03 in Saint Malo
(France) and ADHS'06 in Alghero (Italy). The ADHS series follows
the successful conference series on the Automatisation des Processus
Mixtes
/ Automation of Mixed Processes: ADPM'92 in Paris (France), ADPM'94 in
Brussels (Belgium), ADPM'98 in Reims (France), ADPM'00 in Dortmund
(Germany). 

Contributions are invited in all areas pertaining to the engineering of
hybrid dynamic systems including: modelling, specification, analysis,
verification, control synthesis, simulation, and implementation.
Contributions on applications of hybrid methods in various fields, such
as process industry, transportation systems, communication networks,
safety systems, etc., are particularly encouraged. Synthetic
presentations of hybrid-system problems in these fields are also
encouraged.

INVITED SPEAKERS
E. F. Camacho, University of Seville, Spain
P.J. Mosterman, MathWorks, Inc., USA
J. H. van Schuppen, CWI, Netherlands

PAPER SUBMISSION
Style files and instructions for preparation of camera-ready copy will
be available at
    http://diisconf.cps.unizar.es/adhs09/
Papers submission must be done electronically through the conference
submission site:
   http://diisconf.cps.unizar.es/adhs09/openconf/

Extended versions of the best papers presented at ADHS'09 will also be
selected for possible publication in a special issue of Nonlinear
Analysis: Hybrid System Journal, and in other IFAC Journals.

INVITED SESSIONS
Proposals for invited sessions on particular aspects of hybrid systems
are invited.  An invited session should consist of 4 to 6 papers in the
format described for individual contributions and a one-page abstract
summarising the aim and content of the session. This abstract should
contain: a title for the session, the name and full address of the
session organizer, a list of keywords and the list of the papers
included.

IMPORTANT DATES
March 26, 2009: submission of papers and invited sessions
May 25, 2009: Notification of acceptance
June 25, 2009: Final manuscripts and registration

PROGRAM COMMITTEE
CHAIRS: A. Giua (IT), M. Silva (ES), J. Zaytoon (FR)
INDUSTRIAL CO-CHAIR: P.J. Mosterman (US)
MEMBERS:
P. Albertos (Spain)
H. Alla (France)
M. Ayala Botto (Portugal)
L. Basanez (Spain)
A. Bemporad (Italy)
R. Boel (Belgium)
B. Brogliato (France)
J. Buisson (France)
P. Caines (Canada)  
E. F. Camacho (Spain)
K. Camlibel (Netherlands)
S. Caramihai (Romania)
C. Cassandras (USA)
V. Cocquempot (France) 
P. Colaneri (Italy) 
J. Daafouz (France)
J. A. De la Puente (Spain)
C. De Prada (Spain) 
E. De Santis (Italy)
I. Demongodin (France)
M. D. Di Benedetto (Italy)
G. Dimirovski (Macedonia,  Turkey) 
S. Dormido (Spain)
M. Egerstedt (USA)
S. Engell (Germany) 
M. P. Fanti (Italy)
J. L. Ferrier (France)
L. Fridman (Mexico)
A. Girard (France)
H. Gueguen (France)
A. H. Haddad (USA) 
M. Heemels (Netherlands)
T. Henzinger (USA) 
J. Imura (Japan)
C. Iung (France)
J. Julvez (Spain)
N. Kossoulas (Greece)
S. Kowalewski (Germany)
B. Krogh (USA)
A. B. Kurzhanski (Russia)
M. Lazar (Netherlands)
D. Lefebvre (France)
B. Lennartson (Sweden)
J. J. Lesage (France)
D. Liberzon (USA)
G. Lichtenberg (Germany)
J. Lunze (Germany) 
C. Mahulea (Spain)
N. Manamanni (France)
L. Martinez Salamero (Spain)
P. E. Miyagi (Brasil)
T. Moor (Germany)
J. Neidig (Germany)
G. Pappas (USA)
O. Pastravanu (Romania)
J. R. Peran (Spain)
C. Prieur (France)
J. Raisch (Germany)
A. Ramirez-Trevino (Mexico)
L. Recalde (Spain) 
G. Schneider (Norway)
M. Sobotka (Germany)
C. Seatzu (Italy)
M. P. Spathopoulos (UK)
O. Stursberg (Germany)
Z. Sun (Ireland)
T. Ushio (Japan) 
C. Valentin (France)
D. A. van Beek (Netherlands)
A. J. van der Schaft (Netherlands)
J. H. van Schuppen (Netherlands)
S. N. Vassilyev (Russia) 
T. Villa (Italy)
E. Villani (Brasil) 
Y. Wardi (USA)

ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
CHAIRS: L. Recalde, M. Silva
MEMBERS: 
Jorge Julvez	 
Juan-Pablo Lopez Grao
Cristian Mahulea
Jose Merseguer
Diego Perez Palaci­n
Ramon Piedrafita
Carlos-Renato Vazquez

CONTACTS AND INFORMATIONS
ADHS'09 Secretariat
DIIS (Departamento de Informatica e Ingenieri­a de Sistemas)
Universidad de Zaragoza
c/ Mari­a de Luna 1,
50018 ZARAGOZA, Spain
e-mail: adhs09@unizar.es
URL: http://diisconf.cps.unizar.es/adhs09/

web site: click here

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

48TH IEEE CONFERENCE ON DECISION AND CONTROL AND 28TH CHINESE CONTROL
CONFERENCE
Shanghai, China
December 16 - 18, 2009

Call for papers:

The combined 48th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and 28th
Chinese Control Conference will be held during the third week of
December, 2009 at a location in China. This will be the third time that
CDC has been held outside the United States in the Asia-Pacific region,
and it is very fitting that it is being held in China, where numbers of
new IEEE members are increasing so rapidly. China today is one of the
most dynamic and exciting countries in the world. With a thriving
economy, huge recent investment in education and research, together
with an extraordinarily rich history of culture, it is the ideal
location for CDC.

The annual IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) is
internationally recognized as the premier scientific and engineering
conference dedicated to the advancement of the theory and practice of
systems and control. The CDC brings together an international community
of researchers and practitioners to discuss new research results,
perspectives on future developments, and innovative applications
relevant to decision making, automatic control, and related areas.

The combined CDC and CCC is hosted by the IEEE Control Systems Society
(CSS) in collaboration with the Technical Committee on Control
Theory(TCCT) of the Chinese Automation Association. It is organized in
cooperation with the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics
(SIAM), the Institute for Operations Research and the Management
Sciences (INFORMS), the Japanese Society for Instrument and Control
Engineers (SICE), and the European Union Control Association (EUCA).

On behalf of our conference sponsors and the rest of the conference
organizing committee, the general chairs Lei Guo and John Baillieul
hope that you will plan to join us in China. 

All papers as well as session proposals must be submitted
electronically through PaperPlaza. Authors are advised to carefully
read the CDC09 submission instructions. In accordance with IEEE
requirements, only PDF files will be accepted. In addition to regular
papers, the 48th CDC will also have invited sessions. There will be
both traditional oral as well as interactive presentations at the joint
CDC/CCC09. Please contact the Program Chairs (Daizhan Cheng and Faryar
Jabbari) for further information. Please note that the conference
language is English, all submissions must be written in English. 

Regular Papers:

Papers are invited in the form of regular manuscripts (allotted 6
Proceedings pages). Note that short manuscripts are not considered.
Papers must be submitted through the conference submission website
(PaperPlaza) and must conform to the submission policy requiring that
all manuscripts be in 2-column format and meet strict page limits. For
the purpose of review only, manuscripts may be up to eight (8) pages
long. However, normal length for the final manuscript is limited to six
(6) pages. Papers exceeding the normal length may be submitted upon
payment of overlength page charges of USD 175.00 for each page in
excess of six. A maximum of two extra pages above normal six are
permitted for regular papers and invited session papers.

Proposals are sought from those wishing to organize an invited session.
An invited session consists of six papers, which should present a
unifying theme from a diversity of viewpoints. Proposals for invited
sessions are submitted through the conference submission website
(PaperPlaza), and must contain a Summary Statement describing the
motivation and relevance of the proposed session, as well as short
descriptions of the component papers.

Invited sessions proposals have to be accompanied by FULL versions of
the six invited papers. These component papers have to be submitted
separately by the respective authors (see the submission instructions).
Invited papers are allotted 6 Proceedings pages, and must conform to
the CDC submission policy; ABSTRACTS of invited papers will NOT be
accepted. Please note that each paper in a proposed invited session
will be individually reviewed, and that the proposed invited session
itself will also be rated as a whole.

To ensure the continuity of the program and that papers addressing
similar issues are grouped together, at the discretion of the Program
Committee, individual papers may be removed from a proposed session and
replaced by appropriate contributed papers. Likewise, selected papers
from rejected invited sessions may be placed into the regular program.


Important Dates:
----------------

Initial submissions begin	  Jan. 2, 2009
Invited session proposals close	  Feb. 1, 2009
All paper submissions close 	  Feb. 1, 2009
Acceptance notification	          July, 2009
Final submissions begin 	  Aug 1, 2009
Registration open	          Aug 1, 2009
Final submission close            Sept, 2009

web site: click here

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

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
VOLUME: 53, ISSUE: 8
SEPTEMBER, 2008

1) A Framework for Fault-Tolerant Control of Discrete Event Systems

Wen, Q.; Kumar, R.; Huang, J.; Liu, H.

Abstract: 

We introduce a framework for fault-tolerant supervisory control of
discrete-event systems. Given a plant, possessing both faulty and
nonfaulty behavior, and a submodel for just the nonfaulty part, the
goal of fault-tolerant supervisory control is to enforce a certain
specification for the nonfaulty plant and another (perhaps more
liberal) specification for the overall plant, and further to ensure
that the plant recovers from any fault within a bounded delay so that
following the recovery the system state is equivalent to a nonfaulty
state (as if no fault ever happened). The specification for the overall
plant is more liberal compared to the one for the nonfaulty part since
a degraded performance may be allowed after a fault has occurred. We
formulate this notion of fault-tolerant supervisory control and provide
a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of such a
supervisor. The condition involves the usual notions of
controllability, observability and relative-closure, together with the
notion of stability. An example of a power system is provided to
illustrate the framework. We also propose a weaker notion of
fault-tolerance where following the recovery, the system state is
simulated by some nonfaulty state, i.e., behaviors following the
recovery are also the behaviors from some faulty state. Also, we
formulate the corresponding notion of weakly fault-tolerant supervisory
control and present a necessary and sufficient condition (involving the
notion of language-stability) for the its existence. We also introduce
the notion of nonuniformly-bounded fault-tolerance (and its weak
version) where the delay-bound for recovery is not uniformly bounded
over the set of faulty traces, and show that when the plant model has
finitely many states, this more general notion of fault-tolerance
coincides with the one in which the delay-bound for recovery is
uniformly bounded.

web site: click here

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

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATIC CONTROL
VOLUME: 53, ISSUE: 9
OCTOBER, 2008

1) An Efficient Maximization Algorithm With Implications in Min-Max
Predictive Control

Alamo, T.; Munoz de la Pena, D.; Camacho, E. F.

Abstract: 

In this technical note, an algorithm for binary quadratic programs
defined by matrices with band structure is proposed. It was shown in
the article by T. Alamo, D. M. de la Pena, D. Limon, and E. F. Camacho,
"Constrained min-max predictive control: Modifications of the objective
function leading to polynomial complexity," IEEE Tran. Autom. Control,
vol. 50, pp. 710-714, May 2005, that this class of problems arise in
robust model predictive control when min-max techniques are applied.
Although binary quadratic problems belongs to a class of NP-complete
problems, the computational burden of the proposed maximization
algorithm for band matrices is polynomial with the dimension of the
optimization variable and exponential with the band size. Computational
results and comparisons on several hundred test problems demonstrate
the efficiency of the algorithm.

2) Minimization of Communication of Event Occurrences in Acyclic
Discrete Event Systems

Wang, W.; Lafortune, S.; Lin, F.

Abstract: 

The problem of minimizing communication of event occurrences in systems
modeled by finite-state automata is considered. There are  $n$
communicating agents observing the behavior of the system for purposes
of control or diagnosis. A set of communication policies for the agents
is said to be minimal if communications of event occurrences cannot be
removed without affecting the correctness of the solution. Under an
assumption on the absence of cycles (other than self-loops) in the
system model, an algorithm that computes a set of minimal communication
policies in polynomial time in the number of states of the system is
presented.

web site: click here

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

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
VOLUME: 5, ISSUE: 3
JULY, 2008

1) Modeling and Supervisory Control of Railway Networks Using Petri Nets

Giua, A.; Seatzu, C.

Abstract:

In this paper, we deal with the problem of modeling railway networks
with Petri nets so as to apply the theory of supervisory control for
discrete event systems to automatically design the system controller.
We provide a modular representation of railway networks in terms of
stations and tracks including sensors and semaphores. We first ensure
safeness and local liveness imposing both generalized mutual exclusion
constraints and constraints also involving the firing vector. The
detailed model used in this first step can be abstracted, considering a
higher level description of a railway network that belongs to the class
of ES$^2$ PR (extended simple sequential process with resources) nets
and show that global liveness may be enforced by adding appropriate
monitor places designed using siphon analysis. In our approach, this
can be done without an exhaustive computation of all siphons and we can
characterize the cases in which the procedure can be recursively
applied, giving a simple test for closed-loop net to remain an ES$^2$
PR net.

2) Schedulability Analysis of Time-Constrained Cluster Tools With 
   Bounded Time Variation by an Extended Petri Net

Ja-Hee Kim; Tae-Eog Lee

Abstract: 

Cluster tools for some wafer fabrication processes such as low-pressure
chemical vapor deposition have strict wafer delay constraints. A wafer
that completes processing in a processing chamber should leave the
chamber within a specified time limit. Otherwise, the wafer suffers
from severe quality troubles due to residual gases and heat within the
chamber. An important engineering problem is to verify whether for
given task times there exists a tool operation schedule that satisfies
the wafer delay limit. There have been studies on the problem, which
all assume deterministic task times. However, in reality, the task
times are subject to random variation. In this paper, we develop a
systematic method of determining schedulability of time-constrained
decision-free discrete-event systems, where time variation can be
confined within finite intervals. To do this, we propose an extended
Petri net for modeling such systems. We then develop a necessary and
sufficient condition for which there always exists a feasible schedule
and one for which there never exists any feasible schedule. We develop
a graph-based computational procedure for verifying the schedulability
conditions and determining the worst-case task delay. We demonstrate
how the procedure can be used for cluster tool engineering to control
wafer delays against wafer alignment failures and time variation.

3) On Observability and Design of Observers inTimed Continuous Petri 
   Net Systems

Julvez, J.; Jimenez, E.; Recalde, L.; Silva, M.

Abstract: 

This paper is devoted both to the study of observability criteria and
the design of observers in the continuous Petri net setting. The
concept of structural observability, regarding the possibility of
estimating the marking of places, i.e., the system state, for any speed
of the transitions is introduced and studied for the subclass of
join-free Petri nets (JF). For non-join-free Petri nets, conditions to
compute suitable state estimates are established. The proposed
observers are piecewise linear systems that assure the continuity of
the estimate even when a switch occurs. The system simulation may allow
us to estimate even the unobservable space of the net system during a
given time period.

web site: click here

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

SELECTIONS FROM IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON AUTOMATION SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING
VOLUME: 5, ISSUE: 4
OCTOBER, 2008

1) Directed Control of Discrete Event Systems for Safety and Nonblocking

Huang, J.; Kumar, R.

Abstract:

 We introduce the notion of directed control, where a directed
controller is one that selects at most one controllable event to be
enabled at any instant. This is in contrast to supervisory control,
where a supervisory controller enables a maximum allowable set of
controllable events at any instant, i.e., no specific selection for
executing an enabled event is made. While the design of a supervisory
controller is meaningful for plants that are generator of controllable
events, a directed controller design makes more sense for plants that
are executor of controllable events. The control goal is the same as
that in a supervisory control setting, namely, safety and
nonblockingness. A safe and nonblocking directed controller exists if
and only if a safe and nonblocking supervisory controller exists,
thereby proving the polynomiality of verifying existence. We also
develop a set of algorithms of polynomial complexity to compute a safe
and nonblocking directed controller (whenever one exists).

2) A Petri Net-Based Heuristic Algorithm for Realizability of Target 
   Refining Schedule for Oil Refinery

Wu, N.; Zhou, M.; Chu, F.

Abstract:

In discrete manufacturing, a just-in-time schedule is pursued so as to
respond better to the market. It is also required in oil refinery.
However, the existing techniques for short-term scheduling in oil
refinery are based on the push production mode. This paper addresses
the short-term scheduling problem for crude oil operations in a pull
production way. A target refining schedule resulting from production
planning is given as a constraint to make an executable schedule. The
system is modeled by a timed hybrid Petri net. This model is
structurally simple and can describe the dynamic behavior and all the
constraints of the system without any difficulty. Based on the model,
an efficient heuristic algorithm is proposed to test the realizability
of a target refining schedule. If it is realizable, a feasible
short-term schedule realizing it is created. A real-life industrial
case study is presented to show the industrial application of the
proposed method.

web site: click here

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

SELECTIONS FROM AUTOMATICA
VOLUME: 44, ISSUE: 10
OCTOBER, 2008

1) Robustness analysis of holonic assembly/disassembly processes with 
   Petri nets

Fu-Shiung Hsieh

Abstract:

Although the concept of holonic manufacturing systems (HMS) has been
proposed for over a decade, several desired properties of HMS such as
fault tolerance have not been quantitatively characterized and
rigorously proven. This paper aims to provide a theoretical foundation
for analyzing the fault tolerant properties of holonic
assembly/disassembly processes in HMS. Fault tolerant analysis is
concerned with the impact of resource failures on the operation and
performance of HMS. The goal of fault tolerant analysis is to study the
ability to retain the operation of holonic processes in the presence of
resource failures. To study fault tolerant properties, we propose a
collaborative Petri net (CPN) to model holonic assembly/disassembly
processes and formulate an optimization problem to minimize the cost of
CPN. We propose a greedy algorithm to find a nominal optimal solution.
Based on the nominal solution, we analyze the effects of resource
failures on the operation and performance of the holonic
assembly/disassembly processes. Computational complexities are also
analyzed.

web site: click here