The 2016 Symposium on Advances in Control Education (ACE‘16) was held in Bratislava, Slovakia, on June 1-3 as the 11th event of these tradition high quality symposia. It continued in the chain started in Swansea, UK, 1988 and continued in Boston, USA, 1991, Tokyo, Japan, 1994, Istanbul, Turkey, 1997, Gold Coast, Australia, 2000, Oulu, Finland, 2003, Madrid, Spain, 2006, Kumamoto, Japan, 2009, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, 2012 and Sheffield, UK, 2013. The symposium was jointly organized by the Slovak Society for Cybernetics and Informatics – the Slovak IFAC National Member Organization, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, and the Slovak e-academy, n.o. It was sponsored by the IFAC TC 9.4 Control Education and co-sponsored by TC 2.1 Control Design, TC 2.2. Linear Control Systems, TC 3.1 Computers for Control, TC 3.3 Telematics: Control via Communication Networks, TC 4.1. Components and Technologies for Control, TC 7.1. Automotive Control and TC 7.5. Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles. The participants represented 20 countries from 4 continents. Students and women were well presented.
The Symposium focused on a broad range of techniques, approaches and problems relevant for modern control education. Excellent plenary lectures tackled provision of MOOCs in robotics education (M. Egerstedt), problems of composing control curricula (L. Menini) and new perspectives of soft robotics (K. Ohnishi). The Symposium offered the First IFAC Workshop on "Integrating Teaching and Research at All Levels in Promoting Control as a Field that Spans Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)" (organizers B. Pasik-Duncan and A. Rossiter), an "IFAC World Congress Planning and Open Discussion" (organizers B. Pasik-Duncan and A. Rossiter) and a "Round Table Discussion: From Theory to Practice" devoted to university-industry cooperation (organizer S. Kozak).
In response to our call for papers we received 65 contributed papers and 7 invited papers for Interactive Demonstration Session (organizers T. Restivo and A. Cardoso). All of these 72 papers were put through a rigorous review process by the International Program Committee, with all papers having between 2 and 5 reviews. Finally, 57 of 58 accepted papers and 7 invited papers have been presented at the symposium.
The technical program was complemented by a guided city tour combined with an invitation cocktail offered by regional authorities and by performance of the folklore ensemble Technik. This body functioning at the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava represents one of the oldest folklore ensembles in Slovakia.
The Symposium was successful and memorable.
Bozenna Pasik-Duncan, General Chair / Uni Kansas
Anthony Rossiter, IPC Chair / Uni Sheffield
Mikulas Huba, NOC Chair / STU Bratislava
