Abstract :
As President of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), it gives me great pleasure to welcome you to the 2011 American Control Conference (ACC). It has been a tradition for ACC to be held in western United States every third year, and we are pleased to return this year to the west after St. Louis (2009) and Baltimore (20010), and hold the ACC in San Francisco, the twelfth most populous city in the country, renowned for the diversity of its culture. San Francisco also has a special place in the history of AACC, since the last IFAC World Congress held in the United States was held in this city, in 1996.