Russ Rhinehart Elected President of the American Automatic Control Council

Friday, January 6, 2012

The American Automatic Control Council (AACC) was founded in 1957 to represent the United States to the world automation community, the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). R. Russell Rhinehart, ChE Professor and Amoco Chair, and Interim School Head, will be the US President of AACC during 2012 and 2013.

Automation and control include cruise control in cars, automatic focus and exposure in digital cameras, anti-skid breaking systems in cars, techniques used in supply chain management, pacemakers, process control, robotics and autonomous vehicles, cell-phone tower switching, skyscraper response to wind, and anyplace where automation provides either autonomous observation or decision assistance to improve quality of life.

AACC was created by major US professional societies who needed one organization to represent the US to the world community. Current members of the AACC are AIChE, AIAA, ASCE, ASME, ISA, IEEE, SCS, and SIAM, professional societies that represent over 200,000 US scientists and engineers working in automation.

Within the US, the AACC hosts the annual American Control Conference (ACC), supports K-12 outreach activity, honors and recognizes significant accomplishments in automation through its awards programs, hosts annual workshops on automation topics, supports higher education efforts related to automation, and provides people to support numerous IFAC international activities and symposia within the US. At any one time AACC has about 200 volunteers leading its activities.

The annual ACC is a 3-day conference with about 1,200 participants representing disciplines from applied math to engineering practice. Participants discuss latest research progress in automation, their enabling technologies and sciences, dissemination of knowledge, and preparation of the next generation of control engineers. The conference has presented several landmark papers representing US contributions to automation, and papers from this premier conference are available electronically. Recently held in Baltimore, St. Louis, Seattle, Washington DC, Denver, and Portland; plans are being finalized for the ACCs up to 2017, and starting for the 2018 ACC.

The AACC has also hosted the triennial International Congress on Automatic Control in San Francisco (1996) and Boston (1976), and has recently announced plans to bid for the 2020 World Congress.

Russ has been a long-term participant and leader in AACC activities, recently having served as AACC Treasurer (2003-2009) and Vice President (2010 and 2011), and General Chair for the 2002 ACC, held in Anchorage, AK.

His primary research interests are nonlinear process modeling, control, and optimization.

Russ is also the faculty advisor to the Student Section of the International Society for Automation, and served as Editor-in-Chief of ISA Transactions from 1998 to 2011.