The 2012 American Control Conference (ACC) will be held Wednesday through Friday, June 27 - 29, at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montréal. The conference will be the first ACC outside of the United States.

The ACC annually brings together an international community of researchers and practitioners in control systems and related fields. The conference program features presentations and discussions on the latest scientific developments as well as application successes and lessons learned. Participants convene to discuss the latest advances in the discipline, to shape its future directions, to provide training and educational opportunities for attendees, and to develop and maintain scientific and professional networks.

The ACC 2012 program will feature plenary and semi-plenary lectures, contributed and invited papers, and tutorial and special sessions. Several pre-conference workshops will be held. The conference will also feature theme tracks in aerospace systems and power systems.

We are considering several innovative elements in the technical program, including themes of aerospace, biomedical, and energy systems, to take advantage of local industry in the Montréal area. These elements include industrial tours (as part of pre-conference workshops) and industry-relevant tracks and evening sessions. An on-site single-day registration option is planned to help attract local industry R&D staff.

The ACC is the annual conference of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), the U.S. national member organization of the International Federation for Automatic Control. Society members of AACC include AIAA, AIChE, ASCE, ASME, IEEE, ISA, SCS, and SIAM.

Montréal, the UNESCO city of design and the second largest city in Canada, is a vibrant center of commerce, industry, culture, finance and world affairs. With its amazing, narrow streets, restored buildings, and old houses, as well as modern skyscrapers, theaters, museums, restaurants, and glittering nightlife, Montréal truly is Canada's ’cultural capital’. Montréal's excellent urban transit system is efficient and well coordinated, and its subway is one of the most architecturally distinctive systems in theworld. Another distinction is the world's largest jazzfest; not coincidentally, the Montréal Jazz Festival overlaps with the conference!

The ACC 2012 Operating Committee invites the worldwide participation of all those interested in the theory and practice of control systems, and we welcome your suggestions for making the conference a memorable event, in terms of the technical program and in other respects.