1.3.3 Period 3 (1969-1975)
Recognition and
identification
of problems and survey of possible remedies for JACC.
Continuing development of Awards, structure and of making the
awards. Experimenting in ARC with sponsored research by
AACC. The 1975 IFAC Congress in Boston.
As the long title indicates this was an unusually active period for the AACC. Beyond the Organization and Management of the day to day activity of the AACC council analysis of problems and potential remedies for JACC, experimenting with sponsored research in ARC, organizing a world girdling IFAC congress for 1975 in Boston, developments of the awards attracted most of the attention of the Council. Types of membership arrangements in AACC and other matters added even more activity.
The emphasis of the attention of the Council of course shifted between various periods. The following set of subsections seems to cover the major concentrations of interest for Period 3
In this set 1.2.3.1 is a narrative of various items, important but not controversial or associated with major difficulties. The other deal with special items of major importance or critically burdened with difficulties which dominated the concerns of the Council in this period. A summary of these subsections follow
1.3.3.1 Organization and Management of AACC in Period 3,
1969-1975
Most matters of the organization and management of the AACC
were established during Periods 1 and 2.
This type of historical movement will now be described in a sequence of short five digit subchapters (see Table of Contents) which follow.
Organization and management of an established and functional organization tend to be relatively routine, free of historical events. This is true of AACC during Period 3. Yet over five years there were some important changes which will now be briefly listed in the following subsections.
1.3.3.1.1 AACC as the National Member Organization of IFAC in
Period 3 (1969-1975)
This is one of the principal and important tasks of AACC the
other and national role being the JACC/ACC meeting series in
the US as a natural and comprehensive place for meeting of
minds across the Automatic Control (Systems and Control) field
of engineering.
AACC has performed this role steadily and effectively, being the dominant supporter of IFAC and having the dominant role within it. This however belongs to the history of IFAC and is outside the scope of this writing.
One episode should be mentioned, the perturbation caused by the decision of IFAC on the 10th of April 1973 (see Appendix 2.3.1A) to list their membership fees (paid by the NMO's) in Swiss Franks rather than US dollars, because of the weakening of the dollar. This created some transients by changing the dollar amounts due to be paid to IFAC by AACC. However, these transients were smoothed out because of the value put on the IFAC-AACC operation by its mother societies.
1.3.3.1.2 Composition of AACC in Period 3 (1969-1975)
AACC as the US National Member Organization of IFAC consists
of engineering level professional societies interested in
Automatic Control (now Systems and Controls may be a more
fitting description). Membership of the Societies is on a
voluntary basis and membership fees were set originally rather
informally on the basis of ability to pay and measure of
interest or volume of participation. No real problems
resulted of this arrangement but by about 1970 the
desirability of a more formal distinction between two classes
of membership became clear. A new class of participating
society membership was adopted at the #46? Council meeting in
1970? to accompany the supporting members originally
established.
This arrangement was quite comfortable for some of the smaller societies and resulted in a major recruiting campaign.
The membership of sponsoring societies stayed quite stable with some perturbations around AIAA about JACC 1975 which jeopardized their sponsoring the 1977 JACC. This was eventually resolved with AIAA sponsoring the 1977 JACC at Stanford in parallel with the convention of their Guidance and Control Committee.
There was some fluctuations in participating membership, the current set adding Association of Iron and Steel engineers and the Society of Computer Simulation as detailed further in 2.2.3.1.3.
1.3.3.1.3 Constitution and Bylaws of AACC and Operating Guide
for JACC
Around 1970 it was felt that the Constitution and By-Laws and
JACC Operating guide needed updating. So at the #45 Council
meeting arrangements were made. Some of the more significant
steps were
Details are to be found in 2.2.3.1.3.
1.3.3.1.4 AACC - IFAC Committee Structure
IFAC and AACC were established with an intertwined committee
structure. Any technical committee in IFAC had its direct
counterpart in AACC and other NMO's. This is an effective way
to assure smooth cooperation in matters like the technical
program of the triennial IFAC Congresses and IFAC sponsored
Symposia.
Papers to the IFAC Congresses were originally submitted through its National Member organizations like AACC in the US and reviewed first through the technical committee of the NMO. Later, after 197__ papers to IFAC Congresses were directly submitted to IFAC and reviewed by its technical committees - the latter consisting of representatives of the various NMO's.
On the AACC side the technical committees were composed of individual voting members appointed (one per committee) by the individual sponsoring societies. Some of the committees e.g. theory had additional nonvoting members.
On the nontechnical side, committees like, Finance, Constitution and Bylaws, Awards, etc. were constituted quite conventionally except for one voting member for each sponsoring society appointed by the Society.
IFAC Symposia were authorized to so represent themselves after approval by IFAC on application to AACC. Occasionally IFAC Symposia on some technical subject were instigated by one of the AACC technical committee.
1.3.3.1.5 USSR/USA Exchange Visit
Following a suggestion contained in a letter to H. Chestnut,
an informal contact was made by N. Cohn with Professor Aven of
USSR last March relative to the possibility of technical
exchange between the two countries. Preparations were
negotiated during Period 3.
Secondary contact was made with Mike Athans by Nichols to determine if the IEEE and AIAA meetings this Fall could serve as a stepping off point for such a Russian visit. The timing was such that these dates have now passed rendering this suggestion now inapplicable. Nichols contacted Aven directly in August and received a reply from Aven's secretary that Aven would respond in detail following his summer absence. At the recent IFAC 75 organizing meeting in Dusseldorf, Professor Aven contacted Cohn and indicated that he was still interested in the possibility of an exchange. The current discussion centers around using the 1976 JACC at Purdue as a taking off spot for such a US visit. The 1976 JACC organizing society is ASME. Cohn will discuss the situation again in January at the IFAC 75 program committee meeting in Cambridge, England. It is possible that the Russian half of the exchange could occur in association with the 4th IFAC Symposium on Identification and System Parameter Estimations which will be held in September 1976 in the USSR.
1.3.3.1.6 Obituaries in the AACC Minutes
Three obituaries are included in the Period 3 history in
2.2.3.1.5.
1.3.3.2 The development of the Awards structure
Two awards
were established in Period 2 and distributed throughout Period
3
2.) The Eckman Award founded in memory of Prof. Eckman in 1963 to honor young researchers in the field. The age limit was originally set at 30 but eventually this was felt to be too restrictive and changed to 35. This, highly coveted, award was originally funded for ten years during which time its recipients were
Efforts proceeded in Period 3 to extend the original time limitation of giving this award (10 years). In a different category
4.) Founding of a Career Award was brought up and discussed in 1972. These discussions eventually led to the founding of the Control Heritage Award, later renamed the Bellman Control Heritage Award.
The status of the AACC Award Structure in Period 3 was well summarized in the following resolution passed by the Council in 1973.
2) Beginning with the 1973 JACC Best Paper Award, that award is to be renamed "The O. Huge Schuck JACC Best Paper Award for (YEAR)" and funding for that award will be from the AACC Memorial Fund.
3) The AACC Treasury contributions at least $100 per year to the AACC Memorial Fund and increases its contributions when its financial condition permits.
4) The Eckman Award will be administered by the AACC Awards Committee, and it will be awarded annually to a young engineer or scientist for a creative contribution to the field of automatic control. The rules under which the Eckman Award is to be granted are as follows:
b) Nominations will be accepted in support of candidates who are less than 30 years of age.
c) Supporting evidence must include a full endorsement by at least one responsible supervisor.
d) All supporting documents shall be in the English language.
1.3.3.3 Analyzing Problems and Solutions for JACC
Floating on the exuberance of the new field of Automatic
Control (now thought of more broadly as Systems and Control)
in the founding years of IFAC-AACC-JACC, all operated smoothly
and effectively growing to robust strength almost instantly.
Particularly the JACC meetings attracted audiences from both
industry and academe in numbers around 1,000. Of course JACC
became what it needed to be, the center of attraction and the
principal pillar of cooperation and interaction between some
of the largest engineering and scientific societies. Obviously
AACC could not have the clout of a national member
organization of IFAC without real and active cooperation
through a large yearly meeting of its members of national
scope. It indeed performed this vital role very well from its
beginning.
Yet around the middle of the sixties some cracks started to be noticed. These were caused by the way the cooperation was organized. One must remember that it was an audacious attempt to get large independent professional societies (with territorial concerns) together in effective cooperation nationally (in AACC) and internationally (in IFAC). The exuberance of the new field and, even more, the diplomatic skill of Chestnut, Oldenburger and their counterparts and associates accomplished this admirably. Still it was necessary to make compromises along the way. Most conspicuously it became necessary in the initial constitution for AACC that JACC meetings had to be run by the various sponsoring societies (IEEE, ASME, AICHE, AIAA, ISA; (note AIEE and IRE were then in the process of merging in IEEE)) in yearly rotation with each meeting having its own program committee, without year by year continuity and with no effective coordinating authority above them and each JACC being operated according to the operating rules of its host society for the year. Some societies affiliated JACC with their major annual meetings. Some even used their own societies format and volume size of the proceedings. This obviously would result in year by year fluctuation on every characteristic of the meeting. Granted such swings will attract some attendees but they will repel others and clearly a program covering all interest areas yearly would be more desirable.
Then again the birth of the new field was propelled to a large extent by the initial development of a theoretical toolkit (originally using transforms, like Laplace and z-transforms) applicable in all areas of engineering practice. Hence theory and its developers naturally played a substantial but certainly not exclusive role in the founding years. This may have been the reason for choosing campuses (with housing in dormitories!) as JACC sites, possibly in consideration for the then low economic status of academics. This choice however resulted in giving JACC an academic-theoretical image and also some actual bias in that direction. Referring to engineering practice as applications made this image even stronger.
Yet the founding years were also the time of starting the hotel based convention industry on its boom and the elevation of the economic status of the academic community nationally.
As a result attendees of JACC especially those from industry started to feel that JACC was too theoretical for their interest possibly also felt that the campus location (which among other things spread sessions and committee meetings over unreasonably large distances) uncomfortable.
The wide year by year swings of the character of the meetings in program and operation, the strongly theoretical flavor and the discomforts of the university locations cooled the initial audience enthusiasm for JACC. This manifested itself in a gradual decrease of attendance. Awareness of these problems started to developed at the Council level during the later part of the 1960's. By the middle 1970's discontinuation of JACC was occasionally mentioned as a possibility. As pointed out earlier, this would deprive AACC from its role as the fulcrum drawing the Societies into cooperation and would eventually deprive AACC from its clout in IFAC affairs.
The reaction of the Council to these stresses was systematic and proved eventually effective. The years 1969-1976 were identified here as Period 3 were spent in increasingly deep analysis and discussion of the problems and possible remedies. The history of this process is described in Section 2.2.3.3 and it will be briefly sketched here.
First, a time sequence of actions or discussions will be given here simply identified by the year of occurrence.
It was pointed out earlier in Section 1.2.3.1 that by 1969/70 the Council has become aware of certain difficulties resulting mostly from the lack of year to year continuity and coherence of the series and at the verge of starting a systematic study of the problems and systematic scheme of solutions. Meanwhile a few ad hoc modifications were actually made. An important step toward increasing the year by year consistency took place in 1969 as follows.
"A JACC Operating Committee should be formally designated (it already exists informally). It should be constituted as follows:
The Operating Committee will be charged with the planning and operation of the current JACC."
This arrangement resulted in cooperative planning and arrangements for the various societies running the chain of JACC meetings independently and paved the way for a subsequent ACC series actually run jointly.
At the same meeting Bernie Friedland questioned the campus location of the meetings but no action was taken.
Proceeding systematically to analyze the uneasy feelings around JACC and declining attendances the Program Committee at 1970 JACC distributed to the attendees a survey at JACC 1970 with a questionnaire of 11 multiple choice questions with an emphasis of program contents on three pages (Minutes #46 Appendix 2.2.3.2A) to be returned to Roger Brockett.
After this a few relatively passive years followed on JACC waiting for the effect of the Steering Committee-Operating committee reorganization and the response for the survey on the program. Considerable time was however spent in the Council and by casual groupings of Council members on discussions about the future of JACC. In the meanwhile the functions of the recently reorganized Steering Committee were spelled out [#47-1972]
"Steering Committee Functions to strengthen year by year consistency by training committee members through their participating for a few sequential years."
The Steering Committee submitted in 1972 the new Operating Manual for JACC prepared under the Chairmanship of Zaborszky using his experience as General Chairman of JACC 1971. This document was also designed to further smooth the year by year fluctuations of JACC.
Around new year of 1974 (including Dec. 1973) the JACC issue has reached a sort of turning point. People on the AACC Council level of leadership were for years aware and concerned with the problems around JACC. These were discussed at meetings on and of the record and several ad hoc remedies were tried such as brining more year to year continuity into the JACC Program committee and also into the JACC Steering and Operating Committee by partial reorganizations as was described above. At this point the leadership realized that major organizational changes will be needed. In good judgment, instead of rush action the approach was taken through a thorough comprehensive study to optimize subsequent fundamental actions.
This state of affairs was well summed up by Mc Ruer's statement at the #55 Council meeting (NYC, March 28, 1974)
"In summary, McRuer proposed that
(i) Steering Committee (under the Chairmanship of Weed) continue to address problems, both operational and philosophical - with emphasis on the decision time frame for the 1976 JACC.
(ii) Steering Committee call upon "consultants " to assist in establishing a consensus, e.g., past chairman, AACC officers, directors.
(iii) A report be presented at 1974 JACC in Austin, Texas.
(iv) AIAA report back to its G & C committee on sense of AACC discussion."
As was mentioned earlier a questionnaire mostly oriented towards the Program Committee was distributed to attendees of the 1970 JACC (Appendix 2.2.3.3A). Now a broad based questionnaire was distributed by the Steering Committee at the 1973 JACC (Appendix 2.2.3.3B) to aid in their planning.
The results of this ongoing planning, under the leadership of Herman Weed, were presented to the Council by him in an exceedingly thorough, comprehensive report of the analysis of JACC by the Steering Committee at its #57 meeting on June 19, 1974 at the Austin JACC.
This report gives an all encompassing analysis of JACC at the time, an analysis establishing all the possibilities and offering suggestions for a variety of possible actions rather than a definite plan for reorganization (That part was developed later coming to its implementation in ACC in 1981). Because of its fundamental importance it is included and discussed in its entirety in 2.2.3.3.
This report expresses the feelings of the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee feels that this general problem (JACC) must be resolved within the next few years, but feels that a decision forced at this time could be less than optimum and possibly disastrous to continued joint efforts in the field. It is recommended only that this particular problem be given further study by JACC steering committee while JACC is operated under the recommendations of 1R, 2R, and 3R. (2.2.3.3)
Because of its importance in shaping the history of AACC, and because of its excellence as a deep and thorough analysis of this critical problem and its potential solutions it is included in its entirety and further discussed in 2.2.3.3.
After the presentation of this Steering Committee Report on JACC the Council has discussed it.
In addition to these answers, several letters, some with extensive and detailed proposals have been received as well as several additional inputs including phone conversations and minutes of Ad Com or other meetings.
From this broad spectrum of input has emerged the apparent answer to a few basic questions and a general concensus concerning several points. These include the following:
1R. It is recommended that J.A.C.C. be continued as a joint control society meeting.
2. In spite of the formal action by AIAA to withdraw from J.A.C.C. as of 1976, the support of individuals and societies is otherwise generally continuing although under question. Those societies with most active participation are generally suggesting changes to strengthen or change J.A.C.C., while those with less involvement are for the most part suggesting their continued support on whatever fair basis can be worked out. It is not felt that legislation can be effective to prohibit a society from withdrawing from J.A.C.C. while remaining in AACC nor that such action except by one of the larger two will have appreciable effect except to that society itself.
2R. It is recommended that an attempt be made to work out the problems felt by individual societies to the agreement of the whole as they arise. But that societies be permitted to participate or refrain from participating in J.A.C.C. At their discretion through normal by-law procedures. If a society elects to not participate in J.A.C.C., it is recommended that that society also not sponsor in turn the A.A.C.C.
3. Three generally favored "steps " are directly interrelated. They are:
3R. It is recommended that the J.A.C.C. technical program committee be appointed by AACC (through its director) in a manner providing for staggered replacement and continuity in conjunction with the sponsoring organization for a particular year. It is further recommended that within the technical program committee two vice chairmen be given separately the responsibility for the theory and application areas of the program including invited and special format sessions, including workshops, round tables, and tutorial sessions. The membership of the technical program committee should be chosen so as to reflect both areas of interest. A particular society may elect to be involved in only one area if they choose. Plenary session and the general emphasis of the meeting would be the responsibility of the technical program chairman.
4. Several recommendations have been made relative to specific points which are felt by the J.A.C.C. Steering Committee to be long range and not sufficiently refined to be proposed at this time. They include:
The second suggestion, b. is directed at strengthening the cooperative approach by giving essentially full responsibility for J.A.C.C. to AACC including financial backing from the societies. This would necessarily be at some expense to individual societies and requires the financial support of AACC by the societies.
If the General recommendations of the J.A.C.C. Steering Committee are accepted, it would be the responsibility of AACC and its appropriate "by-laws " committee to modify the operating rules in accordance and to obtain approval from the member societies."
1.3.3.4 The 1975 IFAC Congress in Boston (MIT and
Harvard)
During its Period 3 the AACC accepted the charge for hosting
the 1975 IFAC Triennial Congress. This required major effort
in placing organizing, financing and running this world
girdling international convention. During Period 3 it
dominated the attention of the AACC Council along with the
problems of JACC and of ARC, and mostly defines the Period 3
itself.
The team in charge under the leadership of Nat Cohn, Jack Lozier and others performed an admirably precise undertaking which led very smoothly to a very successful IFAC 1975 Congress.
Some of this effort is summarized in Section 2.2.3.4 using mostly excerpts from the Reports from the IFAC 1975 operation, the Minutes of Period 3 Council Meeting. More details can be found in the latter.
After prior politics and procedures the US location in Boston for the 1975 IFAC Congress was firmed up in 1970 and its scope and the state of its planning is well summarized in a solicitation document from the 4th AACC council meeting on March 26, 1970 quoted in Section 2.2.3.4.
Names of the IFAC/75 Planning Committee should be reported here:
1.3.3.5 The Automation Research Council
During Period 3 the AACC Council performed a very challenging
experiment of sponsored research toward developing nascent
areas in the control and systems field, specifically
automation. This move was spearheaded mostly by McRuer, Weed,
Doolittle and Williams and had a vigorous and fast start
following a visit to NSF, as quoted here from Council Meeting
minutes #51 in 1971.
"Doolittle submitted report on NSF meeting attended by Doolittle and Weed. Report is attached as Appendix 2.3.5. The main impact was the suggestion of an AACC-sponsored -Special Committee for Automation Research."
The Council enthusiastically decided to pursue this opportunity (sponsored research being a new type of activity for AACC) by authorizing the preparation and submission of a Proposal to NSF, organizing and staffing the Automation Research Council including necessary Constitution and Bylaws adjustments. The Council Attitude was quite strong with ASME raising some Constitutional questions about a majority of Sponsoring society members forcing a society to assume financial responsibility. See Section 1.2.3.1.3.
Fast action followed this beginning with ARC being one of the main issues pursued by the Council.
Once organized, the ARC crew proceeded with exceptional vigor toward their goal of broad horizon on the spirit of continued funding to produce a "National Research Plan" for the field of advanced automation incorporating a few "Demonstration Projects ". (The latter names conjure up images of funding on multimillion dollar level.)
This was a challenging task leading through rough terrain. At around 1970 automation did not actually mature to constitute a field. This is clear from the sampling of ongoing automation efforts without any real cohesion as is presented in Point 3 on page 2 in Appendix 2.2.3.54.A. Eventually industrial developments in automated mass production in Japan and the US spearheaded by robotics and advanced theoretical foundations developing at some universities, aided by such high technology tools as robot vision, congealed into a field recognized by the founding of the Robotics and Automation Society of IEEE in the early 1990's. Currently a World organization, like IFAC, IFIPS, etc. is in the making for this field. So in 1970 planning this type of development was truly a leadership type objective but hard to attain at the time especially by very limited funding which became available from NSF for a short time in 1972.
The approach used was through workshops of modest size by experts of the field. Reports were prepared but not really publicized. Fifty copies each were to be distributed to the societies upon completion. They would have constituted a valuable set of information judging from the list reported to AACC by ARC in 1974.
Working toward these goals in relative anonymity made it hard to establish enough visibility for ARC to maintain their funding after two years (1972-74) of NSF support. (See Appendix 2.3.5.E for the summary of the application for extension to 1974 which contains an excellent description of prior activity by ARC).
When the NSF support ended ARC temporarily reverted to a regular (not funded) AACC committee. Their outstanding members engaged in a heroic effort to develop new sources of support (see Appendix 2.3.5.D).
This vigorous persistence produced a revival of the NSF support in a better defined structure with two parallel efforts for theory and practice. The history of the rest of ARC then belongs to Period 4.