Editorial

Abstract

It has been some years since the Aims and Scope of our Journal was updated. I am pleased to say that after wide consultation we have now completed this process. This period of reflection has enabled us to agree the main areas of interest and reassess priorities for the journal. Over recent years, a number of senior researchers in our subject have suggested that we treat system identification in a much more serious manner by encouraging both papers and special issues in the topic. The new aims and scope reflect the changing priorities and the emphasis on system identification techniques. In fact, we should also be appointing a specialist Editor at Large specifically to boost this area and stimulate contributions on the topic. We have also taken the opportunity to tidy up our position on signal processing papers. In the original Aims and Scope we did mention that we would accept some papers on signal processing that were not strictly adaptive. However, most authors considered the journal was only suitable for papers on signal processing that had a strong adaptive systems element. We have now clarified the situation by making it clear that we will accept any papers on signal processing so long as there is the possible application to adaptive control or signal processing applications. This does of course include the majority of papers in the subject. Since system identification can be considered a branch of signal processing, these two initiatives are of course compatible. There continues to be a strong interest in the core subject for the journal, namely the development of a rigorous theory of adaptive control that will eventually provide practical, robust and reliable solutions. Challenging areas such as self-healing and self-commissioning systems will be encouraged and the journal will attempt to attract more papers on applications, whether real or simulated. The problems caused by nonlinearities or uncertainties will be of interest and papers will cover the full range of theory, design and real-time applications. Application papers will be very suitable and particularly those that deal with relatively new areas such as hybrid systems, biological systems or communication networks. The journal has a very open policy on the development of special issues through the appointment of suitable guest editors and the board will always be pleased to consider proposals or indeed any ideas to strengthen the journal or serve our adaptive systems community. We shall look forward to the future growth of the journal with enthusiasm.