It is my singular pleasure to welcome you all to Seattle and to the 2008 American Control Conference (ACC) on behalf of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC) and the Program and Organizing Committees. The ACC is held in cooperation with the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). The 2008 ACC is being held Wednesday through Friday, June 11-13, 2008 at the Westin Seattle Hotel, Seattle, Washington. This premier conference and its associated pre- and post-conference workshops focus on advances in the theory and practice of automatic control. All papers presented are selected through a review process and published in the conference proceedings.
The American Control Conference is the annual conference of the American Automatic Control Council, the U.S. national member organization of the IFAC, and attracts over 1000 participants from the controls community worldwide. National and international society cosponsors of ACC include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), American Institute of Chemical Engineers (AIChE), Association of Iron and Steel Technology (AIST), American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), International Society for Measurement and Control (ISA), and the Society for Computer Simulation (SCS).
The location of the ACC, Westin Seattle, is conveniently situated in the heart of the city, just a short walk to popular attractions including Pike Place Market and the Seattle Aquarium, fantastic shopping such as Nordstrom's flagship store, the vibrant theater district, and a cornucopia of dining opportunities! Seattle, the “Emerald City,” is also home to the Space Needle and Starbucks Coffee. It offers a variety of activities and attractions including tours of the Pacific Northwest, the new Experience Music Project and Museum of Flight, cruises in Puget Sound and beyond, award-winning restaurants, and an acclaimed nightlife and music scene.
The 2008 ACC technical program will cover new developments related to theory, application, and education in control science and engineering. The Program Committee accepted 757 regular and 122 invited papers and the program consists of 119 regular sessions (including 11 in interactive presentation format), 22 invited sessions, and 6 tutorial sessions. A total of 52 technical sessions are scheduled for Wednesday, 47 on Thursday and 48 on Friday (for further details, see the Program Chair’s Remarks in this volume). There will be a plenary session on the mornings of Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We have scheduled 1 two-day and 3 one-day workshops for Monday and Tuesday, and a post-conference workshop on Saturday. National and international companies and organizations will be showcasing new products and publications of interest to conference attendees. Exhibits will be in foyer areas for browsing convenience.
In addition to the technical sessions listed above, I would like to draw your attention to what I believe to be an unusually large number of special sessions that are sprinkled throughout the conference. Several open sessions have been scheduled on Wednesday that provide an industry perspective on a range of topics including the role of controls and optimization in "green" products, air-traffic management, energy-conversion systems, next-generation aerospace, building, and power systems, and general industrial skills for controls engineering graduates. On Thursday and Friday, special sessions have been organized on new funding opportunities from government agencies and on "hot topics" in control including systems biology, adaptive neural control, and economic modeling. In addition to all of the above, a special session on academic job hunting can also be found in the conference.
Following the tradition of past ACCs, we begin the conference with a welcoming reception on Tuesday, June 10, 2008 in Grand III, which will start at 6.30pm, and end with a closing reception on Friday evening, June 13, 2008, in the exciting locale of the Seattle Space Needle. On Thursday, June 12, 2008, an Awards Ceremony will be held at 11.30AM in Grand I, followed by the traditional Conference Luncheon in Grand III at 12.30PM. On all three days of the conference, a light Continental Breakfast will be provided for the attendees in the morning, and a coffee break mid-afternoon. I hope that you will plan your conference stay so that you can participate in all of the above events!
The excellence of this program would not be possible without the tremendous contributions of the authors, plenary speakers, workshop and invited session organizers, and the session chairs. I want to express my gratitude to the numerous volunteers on the Program Committee who have dedicated many hours to make the ACC program a high caliber one. I would like to extend my personal thanks to our industry sponsors, Bosch, Eaton, Ford, GE, Honeywell, MathWorks, National Instruments, and United Technologies, and hope to have their continued participation in all future ACCs! I would also like to thank the National Science Foundation, NASA, and AFOSR for show-casing various funding opportunities. I would like to gratefully acknowledge NSF, AACC, ASME, and IEEE for providing funds and contributions for student travel. Last, but not least, I would like to extend their sincere thanks to the 2008 ACC Operating Committee. I have had the privilege of working with this extraordinary group, every one of whom carried out their tasks and more with precision, care, and ease, making my task an enormously simple and fun one.
I am delighted that you could attend the 2008 ACC. I hope you will take time during these days to increase your knowledge and experience, see old friends, meet new people, and enjoy Seattle. The Book of Abstracts should give you most of the information you need to make your stay a success. Please do not hesitate to stop at the conference registration desk or contact anyone on the Organizing Committee if you have questions or need help.
Best regards,
Anuradha Annaswamy
2008 ACC General Chair