Applications of Intelligent Control to Engineering Systems : In Honour of Dr. G. J. Vachtsevanos

Thiseditedbookispublishedin honorofDr. GeorgeJ. Vachtsevanos,ourDr. V,c- rently Professor Emeritus, School of Electrical and Computer Engineering,Georgia Institute of Technology, on the occasion of his 70th birthday and for his more than 30 years of contribution to the discipline of Intelligent Control and its application to a wide spectrum of engineering and bioengineering systems. The book is nothing but a very small token of appreciation from Dr. Vs former graduate students, his peers and colleagues in the profession and not only to the Scientist, the Engineer, the Professor, the mentor, but most important of all, to the friend and human being. All those who have met Dr. V over the years and haveinteractedwith himin someprofessionaland/orsocial capacityunderstandthis statement:Georgenevermadeanybodyfeelinferiortohim,hehelpedandsupported everybody,and he was there when anybody needed him! I was not Dr. Vs student. I rst met him and his wife Athena more than 26 years ago during one of their visits to RPI, in the house of my late advisor, Dr. George N. Saridis. Since then, I have been very fortunate to have had and continue to have interactions with him. It is not an exaggeration if I say that we all learned a lot from him.

This book represents the work of top scientists in the field of intelligent control and its applications, prognostics, diagnostics, condition based maintenance and unmanned systems. The work presents an approach to solving engineering problems related to manufacturing, automation, and especially unmanned systems and describes recent advances in the disciplines mentioned above.

The main goal of the book is to demonstrate how concepts and ideas from diverse disciplines are merged within a common framework applied to the solution of complex problems.