Control Engineering Practice strives to meet the needs of industrial practitioners and industrially related academics and researchers. It publishes papers which illustrate the direct application of control theory and its supporting tools in all possible areas of automation. As a result, the journal only contains papers which can be considered to have made significant contributions to the application of control techniques. It is normally expected that practical results should be included, but where simulation only studies are available, it is necessary to demonstrate that the simulation model is representative of a genuine industrial application. Strictly theoretical papers will find a more appropriate home in Control Engineering Practice's sister publication, Automatica. Control Engineering Practice papers will tend to be shorter, and relevant to industrial readers. In addition to purely technical applications papers the journal carries papers on topics linked to the application of automation, including social effects, cultural aspects, project planning and system design, and economic and management issues. The scope of Control Engineering Practice matches the activities of IFAC: Aerospace Marine systems Communication systems Biomedical engineering Pulp and paper processing Environmental engineering Scientific instrumentation Transportation and vehicles Power generation and other utilities Mining, mineral and metal processing Chemical and biotechnical process control Manufacturing technology and production engineering The journal covers all applicable technologies: Robotics Identification Signal processing Project management Autonomous vehicles Computer networking Modelling and simulation Human-computer systems Components and instruments Adaptive and robust control Electromechanical components Model-based control techniques Fault detection and diagnostics Software engineering techniques Hydraulic and pneumatic components Real-time and distributed computing Intelligent components and instruments Architectures and algorithms for control Computer-aided systems analysis and design Software design, verification, safety, etc. Artificial intelligence techniques, including fuzzy control neural networks and genetic algorithms Another feature of the journal is the publication of a record of all papers presented at IFAC events, thereby providing readers with direct access to papers not otherwise published in either Control Engineering Practice or Automatica. These papers are available in other IFAC publications published by Elsevier Science. Further details are available from Elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, OX5 1GB, UK. In addition, Control Engineering Practice contains an extensive Conference Calendar of all IFAC and related events, and a regular column of book reviews. Additional information abo