PC based CACSD software-future developments-a tour of the horizon

In control engineering it is now evident that the availability and propagation of computer aided control systems design (CACSD) software has had two profound effects: it has helped in the understanding and the teaching of the subject, and it has led to the rapid spread of new techniques. The author paints a picture of the hardware and software tools that will become available to control engineers over the next decade, based on what is available today. It is safe to predict that equipment will get faster, cheaper and bigger. It is also safe to predict that the production of CACSD software and its use will get easier and quicker as the software tools are developed. What is distressing however is that the software foundations for these tools were laid ten years ago or more. For example, the popular icon based interfaces of today were conceived as part of the Dynabook project at Xerox, which began in 1960. To take a more exciting (and risky) prediction, look to the development of object oriented hardware to support directly the software concepts that have now been around for a decade and which offer the most hope for the development of software in the future