Special issue on the 6th Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control (Controlo 2004)

The Portuguese Association of Automatic Control (APCA) organizes, every two years, the Portuguese Conference on Automatic Control. Its 6th edition (Controlo 2004) was held from 7 to 9 June, 2004 at the University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal, by its Centre for Intelligent Systems (CSI). CONTROLO 2004 International Program Committee (IPC) has decided, from the very start, to ask for submission of full draft papers, to encourage special sessions with well-defined themes, and for student papers. All papers have been reviewed by three separate reviewers. From the 122 contributions submitted, the IPC selected 89 oral papers, 20 special session papers, and 5 student posters. CONTROLO 2004 Technical Programme consists of 33 oral sessions (5 being special sessions) and 1 poster session, covering a broad range of control topics, both from theory and applications. The programme also includes three plenary lectures, given by leading experts in the field, Professors Ricardo Sanz, João Miranda Lemos and Rolf Isermann.

Computational intelligence

The Centre for Intelligent Systems (CIS) is a multidisciplinary research and development centre, founded in 2001, in a very young university, the University of Algarve, in the south of Portugal. The centr's mission is to promote fundamental research in Computational Intelligence (CI) methodology.

Special section on intelligent control systems and signal processing

The IFAC International Conference on Intelligent Control Systems and Signal Processing (ICONS 2003) was organized under the auspices of the recently founded IFAC Technical Committee on Cognition and Control, and it was the first IFAC event specifically devoted to this theme. Recognizing the importance of soft-computing techniques for fields covered by other IFAC Technical Committees, ICONS 2003 was a multi-track Conference, co-sponsored by four additional Technical Committees: Computers for Control, Optimal Control, Control in Agriculture, and Modelling, Identification and Signal Processing. The Portuguese Society for Automatic Control (APCA) hosted ICONS 2003, which was held at the University of Algarve, Faro, Portugal.

Genetic programming and bacterial algorithm for neural networks and fuzzy systems design

In the field of control systems it is common to use techniques based on model adaptation to carry out control for plants for which mathematical analysis may be intricate. Increasing interest in biologically inspired learning algorithms for control techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks and Fuzzy Systems is in progress. In this line, this paper gives a perspective on the quality of results given by two different biologically connected learning algorithms for the design of B-spline neural networks (BNN) and fuzzy systems (FS). One approach used is the Genetic Programming (GP) for BNN design and the other is the Bacterial Evolutionary Algorithm (BEA) applied for fuzzy rule extraction. Also, the facility to incorporate a multi-objective approach to the GP algorithm is outlined, enabling the designer to obtain models more adequate for their intended use.

An autonomous system for ocean acoustic tomography

Vertical line arrays (VLA) are a widely used apparatus in underwater acoustics with applications in sonar prediction, underwater communications and acoustic tomography, among others. Recent developments in digital electronics and communications allow for off-the-shelf development of VLA systems, with a large number of embedded acoustic and non-acoustic sensors able to fulfill application requirements, as opposed to single or few receiver configurations available until only a few years ago. Very often, the flexibility in water column sampling is achieved by splitting the VLA into modules that can be assembled according to the application. Such systems can be deployed and recovered from small vessels with a shorthanded crew, and make it possible for research labs with reduced budgets and operational means (ships and manpower) to gain control over the whole development process, from data acquisition to post-processing.