Automatic Control and Electronics

The past fifty years have seen the automatic control and electronic fields come close together and form an effective means for increasing man's productivity and his ability to control energy and materials. By extending automatic control concepts to new processes, by developing more flexible controls capable of changing their characteristics to optimize performance of the process being controlled, and by increasing the capability of the sensing means in difficult environments, man will be able to make even more effective his ability to control automatically in the years ahead. Electronics is increasingly able to provide physical means for providing the realization of automatic control principles and concepts. Increasing effort to achieve reliable electronic automatic control means must be continued in the years ahead to make possible the realization of the promised gains indicated by the automatic control theory. In addition, more use should be made of standardized design ranges of electrical and mechanical features so that all automatic control equipment can be made in less time and at a lower relative cost. The future appears bright for expanded use of automatic control and electronics as we look ahead for the next fifty years of the IRE.