Minutes of the meeting

 

Tuesday May 7th, 2002, 09.30


Aleutian Room, Hilton Anchorage

 

Technical Activities Board

 

 

Attendance

 

Name

Email

Position in CSS

Bozenna Pasik-Duncan

bozenna@math.ku.edu

Chair of CE

Alberto Bemporad

bemporad@dii.unisi.it

Chair Hybrid Systems Tech. Comm. MYSCOM

Antonio Bicchi

bicchi@ing.unipi.it                     

Chair TC on M.A.R.C.

Luigi Glielmo

glielmo@unisannio.it

Chair TC Automotive Control

Mike Grimble

m.grimble@ecc.strath.ac.uk

Chair TC on Process Control

Thomas Parisini

parisini@univ.trieste.it

Chair TC on Intelligent Control

Cheryl Schrader

schrader@ieee.org         

CSS President-Elect

Leonard Shaw

lshaw@poly.edu

CSS President

Andras Varga

andras.varga@dlr.de

Chair TC on CACSD

 

Summary of the meeting

 

What a TC should do

 

-        Organize workshops and conferences (but there are too many and attendance may be unsatisfactory).  These can be attached/not attached to large conferences.  What matters is the quality of participation, not just its quantity

-        Increase cooperation among TCs

-        Provide service to students to attract them

-        Give structure to the TC (Working groups) and maintain on TC only people with specific commitments

-        Organize and coordinate invited session and review of paper (such as for ACC or CDC)

-        Organize newsletter and capture information from existing newsletter

 

 

Initial presentation of all participants:

 

Pasik-Duncan (University of Kansas):  In charge of  TC on Education; involved in CSS for 12 years. Then “Women in Control”, member of the Editorial Board of TAC. CSS has to do much on Control Education.

 

Bicchi (University of  Pisa, Italy): Also a member of the Robotics & Automation Society. Main area of research is Robotics. Invited on TC by J. Baillieul. Long cooperation between the two societies. Robotics seems disappearing: the technology goes inside the application, domestic appliances.

 

Varga (DLR, Germany): Active since ’96 for the organization of a CCA conference. Then involved for a conference in Hawaii, then ACC in Anchorage. Numerical methods in control. The TC has a web-site.

 

Bemporad (University of Siena, Italy):  IEEE member from ’92, associate editor of TAC.

 

Shaw: Many positions held in CSS, interests in filtering and stochastic control, image compression. CSS full time since retirement.  The CSS is doing well, the journals too, we have to improve electronic access. More cooperation among societies.

 

Parisini (University of Trieste, Italy): quite active, organized CCA in Trieste, CDC, TC on intelligent control. The TC organizes a symposium every year called ISIC, sometimes with CCA, other times independently. Neural Network council is becoming a Society, and it’s an occasion to re-shape collaboration.  ISIC attendees are decreasing and cannot survive alone. CCA, CCSO & ISIC should be together.  It is also a matter of quality of participation. ISIC is held every year; last year paper rejection rate was 47%. There are good people working but they do not participate. They’d like to make ISIC smaller and attached to a major conference. Further the scope of “intelligent control” is seen as too broad.

 

Glielmo (University of Sannio, Benevento, Italy): member of IEEE for more than 15 years; organized an IEEE technically co-sponsored workshop on robust control via variable structure and Lyapunov techniques in Italy in 1994.  He is interested in automotive control since 1995.  Active with CSS since 2000 as chair of the TC on Automotive Controls.  He is now co-organizing an IFAC Workshop on Advances on Automotive Control to be held in Italy in 2004, possibly with the IEEE technical co-sponsorship.

 

[Grimble joins the meeting at 10,15]

 

Bicchi: the workshop on Robotics is usually held after CDC, but not every year. It comprises 15 presentations on a single track.

 

Varga: let ISIC every two years

 

Grimble: active in IEEE in UK for a number of year, seated at BoG.  He is now organizing CCA in Scotland in Sep. 2002. Chair of TC on Process Control. He coordinates TC activity with CCA/CCSD.

 

Duncan: Interaction among TC’s is missing! Continuity of action is also an issue. She desires interaction on this board and would like to propose to J. Bailllieul some common platform.  Further, there is much to do on Control Education, to attract students.

 

Grimble: There is no committee working on this.

 

Parisini:  forms working group on hot topics. It’s a way to put some structure, and people are committed to do something (e.g. organizing a conf.)

 

Varga: A TC should organize a workshop every 5 yrs.

 

Duncan: Only devoted numbers must stay on Committee.

 

[Schrader joins the meeting at 10,40]

 

Bicchi: The models do not apply to all cases, it depends on the topic. Further there is a proliferation of conferences. Organization in ACC or CDC.

 

Parisini: It is also a financial matter.

 

Glielmo: Organized session in large conferences.

 

Parisini: TC should be represented in the IPC of Conference.

 

Duncan: There could be an endorsement letter for organizer of invited sessions.

 

Parisini: This applies also for IFAC World conference. TC is in charge of review.

 

Duncan: Every good idea must be used.  This one could forwarded to Baillieul.

 

Varga: A technical issue: the electronic submission is not working properly when there is overlap of two or more conferences.

 

Schrader: to be discussed in BoG.

 

Duncan: let us propose plan for future activity.

 

Varga: Problems with web-page not compatible with new browser and put under IEEE CSS site. Proposal to get in touch with Pedro Albertos in Barcelona. CCA/CCSD/ISIC for 2004 in Taipei. As a chairman of virtual activity group he will push ideas on awareness of numerical issues in control.

 

Bemporad:  what is the task of a TC chair?  How many people know the existence of TCs?

 

Bicchi: Difficult to say what to do as a TC. Ask yourself what people expect. Service.

 

Bemporad:  Somebody suggested a living web page where it is possible to submit on-line, upload.

 

Duncan: ask somebody to give help on the organization of the page. And feed-back is needed.

 

Parisini: A TC should be a way to serve the society, a first step for. An event should be organized, at least. A web page is not enough. For example, look at other newsletter and capture the information your TC need.

 

Duncan: a lot of students want technical information fast.

 

Bicchi: It’s better having richer TCs, specialized, rather than on broad topics. Manufacturing, Robotics, Automation, is just too big and should be splitted in smaller and maybe more active TCs? It is a general question.

 

Glielmo: he plans to form working group inside the TC; now the web page already offers models of automotive systems for students and a newsletter.

 

Duncan: identify group of interest and talk about them, it’s a way to identify and help people in less developed countries.

 

Grimble: we submitted reports.

 

[meeting ends at 11.30]