IEEE TRAXSACTIONS ON -4UTOMATIC COSTEOL, VOL. AC-17, NO. 6, DECEMBER 1972 755

The Technical Committees of the Control Systems Society

T HE operat,ions of the Control Systems Societ,y are carried on by its officers, its editors, and its com-

mittees; they are all responsible to the Adnlinist,rat,ive Committee, elected by the society membership. The

committees-Membership and Admissions, Awa.rds, Ad- visory, Shndards, Finance, Xominating, Educat,ion, Int,erna.tional, and several liaison committees with the IEEE Technical Activit,ies Board-and a group of t,ech- nical committ,ees as indicat,ed on t,he inside front, cover of the S-CS TRAXSACTIOXS.

Most of us are aware of t$he work of these technical committees through their chairmen and t,he Information Dissemination Cornmitt,ee. The large task of reviewing papers submit,ted for publicat,ion in the S-CS TRANSAC- TIOKS is handled in a major way by members of t.hese commit.tees. In addition, t,hey play a significant role in several national meet*ings, particularly the Joint Auto- mat.ic Control Conference and t,he Decision and Cont,rol Conference, by organizing t,echnical sessions in their fields of interest. New and developing areas of interest as well as t.ut.orial material are brought t o our at>tention in this way. A third, but, less well-knom-n, activity of a. technical committee is concerned with a continual evalua- tion of it.s area of interest,. New research directions, terminology and definitions, standards, new applications,

% xorking commit.tees divide into a group of st,anding

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and in some cases a. declining interest in cert.ain areas are discussed at every commit.tee meeting.

This t,hird aspect of t,he work of the technical committees has not been publicized in t.he past. MtShough each chair- man prepares a written report for t.he annual meet,ing of t,he S-CS AdCom (usually a.t the JACC), the minutes of these meet,ings are only partially published in the S-CS Nezcsletier. Since much of t.his material concerns the evaluation of areas of cont,rol theory and applications by people who are act,ive in publishing as well as revien-ing papers, it is undoubtedly of great, interest to our member- ship. On t.he ot.her hand, the material usually is prepared informally, and represents opinions of current, commitrtee members. To give S-C,S members an opport,unity to read these reports and t,o encourage them t,o express their own opinions, tjhe Information Dissemination Cornmitttee has decided t$o publish a series of report,s on the work of our technical commit.tees in t,he S-CS Nemletter. The first. report. in t.his series nil1 appear early in 1973 in t.he N e z s - lettw. I t has been prepared by t,he Technical Committee on hdaptive .and Lea.rning Systems, Pat,tern Recognition. We urge S-CS members to make their own opinions known t,hrough t,he Newsletter.

J . B. LEWIS President, IEEE Conb=ol

Systems Society