In view of the importance of system identification, the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) hold symposia on this topic every three years. Interest in continuous time approaches to system identification has been growing in recent years. This is evident from the fact that the of invited sessions on continuous time systems has increased from one in the 8th number Symposium that was held in Beijing in 1988 to three in the 9th Symposium in Budapest in 1991. It was during the 8th Symposium in August 1988 that the idea of bringing together important results on the topic of Identification of continuous time systems was conceived. Several distinguished colleagues, who were with us in Beijing at that time, encouraged us by promising on the spot to contribute to a comprehensive volume of collective work. Subsequently, we contacted colleagues all over the world, known for their work in this area, with a formal request to contribute to the proposed volume. The response was prompt and overwhelmingly encouraging. We sincerely thank all the authors for their valuable contributions covering various aspects of identification of continuous time systems.

In view of the importance of system identification, the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and the International Federation of Operational Research Societies (IFORS) hold symposia on this topic every three years. Interest in continuous time approaches to system identification has been growing in recent years. This is evident from the fact that the of invited sessions on continuous time systems has increased from one in the 8th number Symposium that was held in Beijing in 1988 to three in the 9th Symposium in Budapest in 1991. It was during the 8th Symposium in August 1988 that the idea of bringing together important results on the topic of Identification of continuous time systems was conceived. Several distinguished colleagues, who were with us in Beijing at that time, encouraged us by promising on the spot to contribute to a comprehensive volume of collective work. Subsequently, we contacted colleagues all over the world, known for their work in this area, with a formal request to contribute to the proposed volume. The response was prompt and overwhelmingly encouraging. We sincerely thank all the authors for their valuable contributions covering various aspects of identification of continuous time systems.

Recent advances in LSI technology and the consequent availability of inexpensive but powerful microprocessors have already affected the process control industry in a significant manner. Microprocessors are being increasingly utilized for improving the performance of control systems and making them more sophisticated as well as reliable. Many concepts of adaptive and learning control theory which were considered impractical only 20 years ago are now being implemented. With these developments there has been a steady growth in hardware and software tools to support the microprocessor in its complex tasks. With the current trend of using several microprocessors for performing the complex tasks in a modern control system, a great deal of emphasis is being given to the topic of the transfer and sharing of information between them. Thus the subject of local area networking in the industrial environment has become assumed great importance. The object of this book is to present both hardware and software concepts that are important in the development of microprocessor-based control systems. An attempt has been made to obtain a balance between theory and practice, with emphasis on practical applications. It should be useful for both practicing engineers and students who are interested in learning the practical details of the implementation of microprocessor-based control systems. As some of the related material has been published in the earlier volumes of this series, duplication has been avoided as far as possible.

Remote Sensing Data Analysis in R is a guide book containing codes for most of the operations which are being performed for analysing any satellite data for deriving meaningful information. The goal of this book is to provide hands on experience in performing all the activities from the loading of raster and vector data, mapping or visualisation of data, pre-processing, calculation of indices, classification and advanced machine learning algorithms on remote sensing data in R. The reader will be able to acquire skills to carry out most of the operations of raster data analysis - more flexibly - in open-source freely available software i.e. R which are generally available in the paid digital image processing software. Note: T& F does not sell or distribute the Hardback in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The title is co-published with New India Publishing Agency.