Editorial: Survey and tutorial papers

As control technology becomes more and more complex, it becomes increasingly important for engineers and engineering students to understand the many new developments and theoretical results presented in journals such as the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. As Associate Editor for Surveys and Tutorials, the author would like to encourage potential new authors to submit manuscripts in this very important category of Transactions papers. Survey papers should be on timely subjects and as comprehensive as possible. The survey must obviously be novel and must not have appeared in some text or other publication, although survey papers may properly be generated by an author preparing a new text or a research worker developing a new area of investigation. A good survey should present the reader with an integrated perspective of the field being surveyed. Tutorial papers should expose a body of theoretical results or new design tools as clearly as possible. The understanding of results and design algorithms should be emphasized over mathematical details. Most tutorials should be understandable to the average B.S. engineer. A good tutorial can play a key role in keeping a practicing engneer current. Some may appropriately be written for the advanced specialist. There are many good topics for survey and tutorial papers. Even if you are not a potential author, your input on topics of interest would be appreciated.