An IFAC 2017 special feature
Among the innovative features of the 20th IFAC World Congress, contributions are most welcome to the special demonstrator paper category associated to an exhibition of demonstrators. The goal is to promote research or educational-oriented devices, innovative prototypes and attractive transfer of technologies towards high-tech enterprises. Regular demonstrator papers will be selected on the same high peer-review standards as other regular papers and are intended to promote the excellence of colleagues involved in practical implementation of state-of-the-art control concepts. The exhibition will highlight the future applicative trends of automation and control.
Dedicated team
The IFAC 2017 demonstrators' event is also part of a series of successful workshops organized every four years by the Angers Research Laboratory on System Engineering (LARIS) of the University of Angers, France. Four of these workshops, known as "Journées Démonstrateurs", have already been held, gathering both academic researchers and industrial participants from large groups and SMEs. The 2017 World Congress will rely on the expertise of the organizers of these workshops.
See also the PDF call for IFAC2017 demonstrators
And more information on the LARIS web site
Some demonstrator topics
The following non exhaustive list of topics provides examples of aimed demonstrator contributions.
- Process control demonstrators: any experimental device that illustrates recent achievements in control theory in a relevant way. Adaptive control, intelligent control, LPV systems, time-delay systems, hybrid systems, nonlinear systems, partial differential equation systems… could be sources of motivation.
- Advanced robotics: prototypes developed in laboratories related to microbotics, bio-inspired robots, autonomous robots, modular robots, healthcare, collaborative robots…
- Educational devices: numerous attractive devices have been developed to improve the learning process in academia or for professional degrees. Didactic methods underlying the proposed experimentation will be particularly emphasized, and direct relationship with research projects are most welcome.
- Popularization devices: videos and dedicated devices are beneficial to popularize control and automation research and to help researchers explain their work to non-specialists. Having such devices presented at the congress would be most valuable for the participants and could be part of an exhibition open to the public.
- Immersive multimedia: numerous aspects of virtual reality and mediated reality can be investigated, including sensory experiences and simulated environment. Multidisciplinary skills are often required for prototype development in many application areas, including military applications, art, archeology, gaming, therapy…
- Vehicles: autonomous cars and platoons, unmanned aerial vehicle, solar vehicles, autonomous robotic boats… A dedicated site for large scale demonstrators that need adapted infrastructure is pre-booked.
- Demonstrators for industry: multidisciplinary projects in which automatic control is at the crossroad of several scientific disciplines and offers original solutions for complex problems are most welcome. Innovative prototypes recently implemented in industrial environments will be emphasized.
- Software: demonstrators can include software tools for simulation, modeling, control design, etc.
Submission procedure of demonstrator papers
The submission site is open at http://ifac.papercept.net.
Papers presenting an automatic control demonstrator will have the same status as any other IFAC paper. They can be submitted as a "contributed paper", a "contributed survey paper", or a "contributed extended abstract". After selecting one of these paper categories, the second page of the submission system will request the authors to provide their names and the title, keywords and abstract of the paper as well as the required "type of presentation". Please select the "demonstrator paper" type. This information will be forwarded to the reviewers for contextualized review of the contribution. It will also be used by the IPC to compose the program.
Important: At the final step of submission, after having uploaded the manuscript, contributors of demonstrator papers are requested to upload a short PDF file describing their needs in terms of logistics and infrastructure (number of required square meters, required type of electricity power, etc.). Please be aware that although this upload function is optional and not mandatory on PaperCept, the contributors are nevertheless required to upload such a file.
Invited sessions and open open invited tracks
Two types of invited sessions and tracks are proposed for the IFAC 2017 World Congress. See www.ifac2017.org/invited for details about the differences between the two types. Contributors are most welcome to submit open invited track proposals for demonstrators. Submit your track proposals as soon as possible to have time to attract contributions.
Demonstrators exhibition
Papers that fall in the demonstrator category will be presented in dedicated sessions. The demonstrators will be exposed at a dedicated exhibition on the site of the World Congress. Another site will also be used for large scale demonstrators that need a dedicated infrastructure. In other cases the demonstrators will be advantageously presented in interactive session where a space will be allocated to each speaker with a TV screen to be connected to a laptop (laptops are not provided by the organization). The presenters will be encouraged to emphasize their contributions by means of videos, simulations, demonstrations of software tools, or in classical slideshow format.
Companies are also invited to participate to the demonstrator exhibition and can book dedicated exhibition booths. See here for details.
Contact
Please contact demonstrators@ifac2017.org for any question concerning the demonstrators at the IFAC 2017 World Congress.
