Automation, Control and Complexity: An Integrated Approach

This text focuses on the management of complex automated systems encountered in industrial research and covers specific technologies and application domains that are cross-disciplinary. It offers broad discussions on the many related perspectives and presents detailed case studies.
Technological developments increasingly require the conflicting criteria of performance, cost, environmental impact and safety to be reconciled. The field of complexity management addresses this challenge through the integration of traditionally disparate disciplines such as control science, software engineering, artificial intelligence and biology. Automation, Control and Complexity - An Integrated Approach is organised around four central themes: People and Automation, Sensing and Control, Software and Complex Systems and Complexity Management and Networks. Features include: Authoritative discussions of complexity within a variety of engineering domains, including commercial aviation, process industries, communication networks and power systems. Expositions of current and future trends in a wide range of technical fields such as control engineering, computer science, sensor systems, maintenance and diagnostics. Practical examples of the harnessing of sophisticated technologies for the realisation of a new generation of automation and control solutions.
Based upon a unique wealth of practical experience, this book exposes complexity as an opportunity to be seized rather than a problem to be confronted and will be of value to all technologists, managers, students and researchers dealing with complex engineering systems.