Your Magazine (From the Editor) - Control Systems Magazine, IEEE

Surely, you’ve read in-flight magazines, even when you’ve had work to do. Articles on fascinating subjects such as the science of laughter and the world’s best concierge are hard to resist. But suppose you’d tucked the magazine you’re now reading into the seat pocket in front of you and then inadvertently abandoned it upon reaching your destination. What chain of events might such an oversight bring about? I fantasize an impressionable, young person encountering this neglected magazine, who, after a moment of puzzlement, becomes intensely attracted to the wonders of control system technology. This budding systems scientist would cherish this issue for the life-long passion that it inspired in this crucial, but unassuming, corner of science and technology. On the other hand, the random reader of this magazine might view it as you might react to, say, Dulcimer Players News, A Quarterly Magazine for the Mountain and Hammered Dulcimers or Bead & Button, Creative Ideas for the Art of Beads and Jewelry. While these periodicals surely have their devoted followers, you might give them a quick flip through but probably not decide to change your career. Like Lola running, we just don’t know how small details and chance encounters affect the paths of our lives...an overheard conversation...a musty book...a next-door neighbor. All of these random minutiae have accumulated inexplicably to bring you to your present reality. Your link to IEEE Control Systems Magazine (CSM) is a product of this minutiae, and the articles that you find inside it are the work of others traveling along similar trajectories. The magazine is an ongoing conversation about control systems science and technology, and you are cordially invited to join in that conversation. Each issue of CSM contains several features that describe substantive work. We don’t expect these articles to present new theory. Rather, we encourage articles that illuminate theories developed elsewhere so that nonexperts can appreciate those developments. Interesting applications of control ideas and control technology are especially welcome, where engineers wrestle with real technology and exquisite equations