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The article reports on the 7th International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) Symposium on Advances in Control Education (ACE) 2006 held on June 21-23, 2006 in Madrid, Spain. The symposium was a venue for new ideas on control curriculum development, control-related software, laboratory experiments, paradigms of virtual and remote experimentation and continuing education and training.

The article discusses the highlights of the 20th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation held in Barcelona, Spain on July 3-6, 2012. Professor Mario Sznaier gave a presentation on controlling data deluge. Professor Alicia Casals discussed the use of adaptive control in neurorobotics. A panel session focused on the role of control in the society of the future.

The article highlights the Joint 44th Conference on Decision and Control (CDC) and European Control Conference (ECC) in Spain in December 2005. The annual CDC is sponsored by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Control Systems Society. The ECC, on the other hand, is sponsored by the European Union Control Association. A plenary lecture delivered by Edward Davison of the University of Toronto addressed ways of bridging the theory-practice gap and focused on the time-response performance aspects and control-signal magnitude aspects of controller design.

The article presents the minutes from the Board of Governors meeting of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Control Systems Society (CSS) in Spain on December 11, 2005. One issue discussed is the involvement of CSS in the IEEE Systems Council, which will be sponsoring a systems journal and a conference. Appointments approved for 2006 included Alessandro Giua as chairman of the Standing Committee on Chapter Activities and Hua Wang as head of the Standing Committee on Public Information. The budget parameters for 2007 was presented by vice-president of financial activities Jay Farrell.

The article presents a speech by Manfred Morari, recipient of the Control Systems Technical Field Award, during the Joint 44th Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference in Spain in December 2005. Morari has spent 30 thirty years of conducting research in the field of automation and control. He attributes his academic career at the University of Minnesota while pursuing graduate work to his two advisors George Stephanopoulos and Rutherford Aris. Together with Eckman award winner John Seinfeld, Morari founded the Department of Control and Dynamical Systems at the University of California.

The article highlights the tutorial sessions at the Joint 44th Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference in Spain in December 2005. One session focused on hybrid-electric vehicles that must satisfy tradeoffs among fuel economy, emissions objectives, and performance and driveability goals. "Airspace De-Confliction" addressed problems in enhancing airspace management, illustrated technology advancements and implementations that increase aircraft safety. The tutorial session on hybrid control of networked embedded systems provided an overview of developments in the area of hybrid control, motivated by four applications to complex embedded systems.

The article reports on the preconference workshops at the Joint 44th Conference on Decision and Control and European Control Conference in Spain in December 2005. The objective of the workshop "Control, Estimation and Optimization of Interconnected Systems: From Theory to Industrial Applications" was to provide coverage of results in networks of interconnected dynamical systems. Another session centered on the model predictive control of hybrid systems. A workshop was coordinated by Jan Willem Polderman of the University of Twente and Harry Trentelman of the University of Groningen, both in the Netherlands, to give an introduction to the behavioral approach to systems and control and to present advances in the said field.

This article describes the Plataforma Solar de Almería direct solar steam facility, a solar system that serves as a test-bed for investigating the direct steam generation process in parabolic trough solar collectors in Almeria, Spain. The control scheme for the one-through most has been designed, implemented and tested within the framework of the direct solar steam project. The direct solar steam project demonstrated that it is possible to produce high-pressure, high temperature steam directly in parabolic trough solar collectors. Using a scheme based on proportional integral and feedforward controllers, the controllability of the plant is guaranteed on clear days and during short transients in solar radiation. Longer transients in solar radiation make it difficult to maintain the steam temperature in favor of guaranteeing a minimum flow to avoid high temperature gradients in the cross-sectional area of the collectors' absorber pipes when the solar radiation level is recovered. A structure partially based on classical controllers was chosen because plant operators are familiar with this type of controller and can adapt the controller parameters in situations affecting plant dynamics and controller performance, such as modifications in plant layout or system changes over time.