Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controllers are undoubtedly the most employed controllers in industry. The 2018 IFAC flagship conference on advances in PID control was held in Ghent (Belgium). The splendid city provided a warm and open atmosphere for about 200 researchers from the whole world to discuss new trends and issues in PID control. Several of the discussed topics were related to industry 4.0 and mechatronic systems.
Research funded by the I-MECH program about “Acceleration Feedback in PID Controlled Elastic Drive Systems“ and „A Fast Autotuning Method for Velocity Control of Mechatronic Systems“ has been presented at the conference. Furthermore, Gefran, a key conference sponsor, promoted I-MECH during a highly valuable industrial panel discussion. Alignment of conference results with I-MECH relevant directions was investigated by some of consortium partners during a dedicated meeting.