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Latest News On the ETFA 2008 Conference report Alexander Fay and James C. Hung, the Conference General Chairmen. The IEEE 2008 Conference on Emerging Technology and Factory Automation (ETFA2008) was held on September 15 to 18, 2008, in Hamburg, Germany, at the Helmut Schmidt University. The conference was attended by 302 enthusiastic attendees from 36 Countries. The first day of the conference was an Industry Day (ID). There were three ID sessions having a total 13 speakers, all from the industry, and 85 participants. This year’s highly focused topics were on the new development and implementation of the IEC 61131and IEC 61499 Standards. The occasion was an unusual gathering of world’s expert from industry regarding these topics. Never before the current activities, regarding these two standards, have been presented in such completeness. The high quality technical program of ETFA2008 had two kinds of papers, namely the Regular papers and the Work-in-Progress (WIP) papers. In addition, there were 3 Keynote speeches. There were 37 Regular paper sessions. Each Regular paper was orally presented in about 20 minutes, followed by dialogs from the audience. Statistics of Regular papers are: 247 submissions received; 3 reviews for each paper; and 166 accepted papers – 67% acceptance ratio. Participants were pleased with the papers’ high quality. As a result, some papers will be updated for submission to the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics. Technical Program Committee selected recipients for two best paper awards. One is the Fumio Harashima Best Paper Award for Emerging Technology, and the other is the James Hung Best Paper for Factory Automation. Both awards were presented at the ETFA2008 Banquet. There were 6 WIP sessions. Each WIP paper was orally summarized by its author in 5 minutes in the session room. The full content of each WIP paper was posted on boards in the large hall outside the session rooms. Many detailed and lengthy discussions occurred there. Statistics of WIP papers are: 129 submissions; 2 reviews for each paper; and 85 accepted papers – 66% acceptance ratio. Two Best WIP Paper Awards were given to their authors at the end of the WIP sessions. Two technical tours were held. One was a visit to Hamburg harbor’s Container Terminal, a well-automated facility. The second was a guided tour of the Hamburg Airbus Construction Center, where advanced techniques and automation used were pointed out. Both tours matched well with the main theme of the conference. All participants were invited to a Reception at the Hamburg City Hall, hosted by the City of Hamburg. The reception provided an excellent atmosphere for meeting old acquaintances and making new friends. At the conference banquet, the participants were entertained by an excellent string quartet. Several conference awards were given at the banquet, In conclusion, ETFA2008 was very successful. It was well organized, well planned, well executed, and well attended.
Some photos from the conference:
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