1964 I E E E T R A S S A C T I O S S O S A L ~ T 0 : l i A T I C C O S T R O I . 1

Summit Meeting-The Second IFAC Congress

I4 AST SUTYI~IER? the Second International Congress on Automatic Control was held in Basle, Switzer- land. Although it did not have the same excite-

ment and anticipation of the unknown which char- acterized the First IFA4C Congress in ~ I O S C O W , i t did illustrate that the IFXC organization is evolving into a forum for the interchange of information about control problems throughout the world. There were over 1300 delegates from 30 countries and 161 papers were pre- sented. Perhaps three times as many discussions were given in the 72 technical sessions, and there were in- numerable discussions between individuals where much significant information, unfortunately not re- corded, was exchanged.

X unique and effective feature of the congress was the inclusion of special survey sessions which were held for all delegates to summarize the progress that had been made in the various branches of control technology in- cluding 3Ietal Rolling and Processing, Ferrous IIetal- lurgy, Chemical and Oil Production, Kelt- Design Prin- ciples and Devices, Process D>-namics and Process Con- trol, Adaptive Control, Learning IIachines, Statistical Methods in Control, Synthesis of Optimal Regulators, the Information Evolution with respect to ,Automatic Control, Electric Power Control, and Component Re- liability. Sotably absent was a survey of machine tool control, but otherwise the survey papers gave a broad perspective of control progress and research which would have been distorted if only the presented papers had been used as a basis of a survey.

Several of these survey papers are excellent sum- maries of control activities in various areas since the first congress in 1960-and before. In fact many of the volumes, which were published in pocketbook size, are little textbooks in themselves. Copies of all of these valuable survey papers were undoubtedly retained b>- all of the delegates not onl!: for the information they con- tain, but for the references which are also included.

Unlike the survey sessions which were not held si- multaneousll- with any other session and where simul- taneous translations of the presentations were given, the regular technical papers were presented in four con- current sessions on each dal; of the six and one-half day congress, and sequential translation from English to Russian and vice versa was used. Of course, this is a time consuming ritual which is made necessary b)? the lack of a common language. I t was somewhat ironic that the more ideal simultaneous translation was used only in the survey sessions where most of the papers were read directly from the test which was freely distributed for the audience to read during the presentation.

Unlike the discussions at the First IF.AC Congress in ~ ~ I O S C O W , the presentations and the discussions of the technical papers a t the Second Congress were relatively short. Speaking time was generallJ- limited to 10 or 15 minutes, and the discussions were directed toward the author and his paper or to some closely related work. In this way more information from the author and the dis- cussor was obtained. A l l of the discussions were moni- tored by a tape recorder and, in addition, a scientific secretary of each session requested written copies of the discussors’ comments which were edited later by the speakers themselves. Ultimately, these discussions will be included in the conference PROCEEDINGS and they should make a valuable addition to the information in the papers.

One of the highlights of an International Control Congress is the personal confrontation with the control engineers and scientists from other countries, particu- larly from the Soviet Union. Language barriers are al- wa5-s a source of difficult>-, and because more Europeans and Russians can speak English than vice versa, English was the predominate language. Nevertheless, termin- ology and basic principles are not transformed as easily as words are translated into another language, and this may result in confusion or misinterpretation which re- quires time to understand-if a t all.

-At this congress, many of the Soviet authors were represented bp a few of their well known colleagues in- cluding I,7. S. Pugachev, -A. \-a. Lerner, AI. Xizer- man, X. Feldbaum. B. X. I’etrov, J a Z. Tsypkin and -4. 31. Letov, who often gave the papers for their stu- dents or associates in both Russian and English. At times, they aptly gave unprepared answers in English to discussors’ remarks with the realization that they might be misunderstood or misinterpreted because they ac- tually do not practice speaking English very often. Nevertheless, many delegates were disappointed that they could not exchange views with more of the Ru- s lan ’

authors. In contrast to the First IF-lC Congress, some of the

reports presented in Basle by the delegates from the Soviet Union seemed to be somewhat esploratory and the work described was not alwal-s complete. Some of it did not appear to have the significance that the in- vestigators probably thought i t would have when it was initiated, and it was not clear that the work would be as important as that which had been described a t t he first congress. Of course i t should be noted that much of the theoretical work presented at the Moscow Con- gress was, to a large number of delegates, a first introduc- tion to the Soviet advances in control theory, and it

2 IEEE TRANSACTIOLVS Ohr A UTOi l lATIC CONTROL January

\Cas not generally understood: but in the ensuing years, basic control research has been further developed by a large number of investigators from other countries, and new developments in th i s congress were better under- stood, compared, and evaluated. Perhaps for this reason there appeared to have been no major breakthroughs in any area of automatic control.

In addition to the 83 papers on theor!-? there were 56 on applications and 22 on components. IIan?. others provided information on work in all areas of control, and the discussions were generally interesting and usually worthwhile: but as in all conferences of this nature, some of the papers seemed outdated and others superfluous to man>-, but not necessarily to all. I t is dificult to measure the worth of an?- conference xvhich is established n1ainl!- for the interchange and circulation of information on automatic control activities. especiall?- when much of it occurs at informal meetings or on industrial tours or a t lunch or dinner. -Although they are unmeasurable, the new friendships and the communication liuks the>- en- gender are of particular importance to the indixridual-

especially in an international congress. The city of Basle is not a huge metropolis. llost of the delegates will re- member i t for the numerous and narrow green and white electric trams and the quaint, medieval streets twisting along the banks of the swift flowing Rhine River. Al- though i t has a large tourist trade, the city \vas some- what deluged by the unusually large influx of IFAC delegates, and this created some housing difficulties and some extensive commuting at first, but these problems were settled in the first two days, and the Congress itself functioned smoothly. Technical as xell as social events were extremely well organized and, in general, the facili- ties were excellent; the papers, the discussions, and the sessions were u-ell prepared.

Certainly, in size and scope and attendance, the Sec- ond IFXC Congress in Basle was a summit meeting like its predecessor in ~Ioscow, and i t is \yell that these meetings are not held more often, because their signifi- cance can be measured only with intervening time for individual reflections.

-The Editor