The field of control provides the principles and methods used to design engineering systems that maintain desirable performance by automatically adapting to changes in the environment. Over the last forty years, the field has seen huge advances, leveraging technology improvements in sensing and computation with breakthroughs in the underlying principles and mathematics. Control systems now play critical roles in many fields, including manufacturing, electronics, communications, transportation, computers and networks, and many military systems. At the dawn of the 21st century, the opportunities to apply control principles and methods are exploding. Computation, communication and sensing are becoming increasingly inexpensive and ubiquitous, with more and more devices including embedded processors, sensors, networking hardware, and automation systems. This will make possible the development of machines with a degree of intelligence and reactivity that will influence nearly every aspect of life on this planet, including not just the products available, but the very environment in which we live.

   The Control and Industrial Automation Research Center is run under the auspices of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Certainly, because of the nature of the field, other outstanding researchers from Mechanical as well as Chemical Engineering are collaborating closely. All activities of the center are divided and organized into four research labs including:

Control System Theory
Advanced Industrial Control
Measurement and Instrumentation
FACTS
Modern Control Simulators
 

 

   Control System Theory Research Lab.