Author Description

The Proceedings contains the papers presented at the IFAC Symposium on Cost-Oriented Automation held in Berlin, Germany from 8-9 October 2001. Cost-Oriented Automation is one of IFAC's key technical areas and this regular symposium series has an excellent reputation. This Symposium was organised by the Technische Universitat Berlin/Center of Human-Machine Systems and the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Systems and Design Technology (IPK-Berlin) on behalf of the VDI/VDE Gesellschaft fur Mess- und Automatisierungstechnik. The life cycle of automation systems, including design, production, operating, maintenance, reconfiguration and recycling, was considered with particular emphasis on cost effectiveness (cost of ownership). The Proceedings contains nearly 40 papers, including the papers presented at two industrial workshops on Virtual Programmable Logic Control and Lifecycle Costs, where new developments in these fields were presented and discussed. The topics of the eight regular sessions were: Controls for manufacturing systems Simulation of manufacturing systems and processes Actuators and sensors Programmable logic controls Robotics Information processing for shop floor control Human-machine interfac Implemented solutions