Conference on ``Cooperative Control and Optimization'' will take place on November 12-14, 2001 at the University of Florida.

A cooperative system is defined to be multiple dynamic entities that share information or tasks to accomplish a common, though perhaps not singular, objective. Examples of cooperative control systems might include: robots operating within a manufacturing cell, unmanned aircraft in search and rescue operations or military surveillance and attack missions, arrays of micro satellites that form a distributed large aperture radar, employees operating within an organization, and software agents. The term entity is most often associated with vehicles capable of physical motion such as robots, automobiles, ships, and aircraft, but the definition extends to any entity concept that exhibits a time dependant behavior. Critical to cooperation is communication, which may be accomplished through active message passing or by passive observation. We assume that cooperation is being used to accomplish some common purpose that is greater than the purpose of each individual, but we recognize that the individual may have other objectives as well, perhaps due to being a member of other caucuses. This implies that cooperation may assume hierarchical forms as well. The decision-making processes (control) are typically thought to be distributed or decentralized to some degree. For if not, a cooperative system could always be modeled as a single entity. The level of cooperation may be indicated by the amount of information exchanged between entities. Cooperative systems may involve task sharing and can consist of heterogeneous entities. Mixed initiative systems are particularly interesting heterogeneous systems since they are composed of humans and machines. Finally, we are often interested in how cooperative systems perform under noisy or adversarial conditions.

This conference will present problem models, theoretical results, and algorithms, for the cooperative control problem. It is expected that the workshop will include discussion on: (1) models of cooperative systems, including resource allocation, discrete event driven and continuous dynamics, and the interaction of information, control, and hierarchy; (2) methods of solution, including control methods, optimization based approaches, emergent rule-based techniques, game theoretic and team theoretic approaches; (3) measures of performance such as effects of hierarchies and information structures on solutions, performance bounds, concepts of convergence and stability, and problem complexity; (4) testbeds, test problems, real world applications, and future areas of study.

In December 2000, the Air Force Research Laboratory and the University of Florida College of Engineering successfully hosted the first Workshop on Cooperative Control and Optimization in Gainesville, Florida. About 40 individuals from government, industry, and academia attended and presented their views on cooperative control, what it means, and how it is distinct or related to other fields of research. A book, to be published this summer by Kluwer Academic Press, will contain material summarizing the participants' research in control and optimization of cooperative systems. The workshop also provided an excellent forum to begin teaming and collaboration on the many new funding opportunities appearing this year in the U.S. Department of Defense related to cooperative systems. With these tasks coming on-line, this year holds even greater potential for a productive and instructive conference!

The conference is supported by the Air Force Research Laboratory and the College of Engineering of the University of Florida.