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Recent applications such as control over networks, system state estimation using networks of sensors and real-time embedded control systems have blurred the boundaries of the disciplines of communications, control and computation. Increasingly, communication, control and computation take place through interconnection of systems leading to desirable interactions. From a methodological point of view, simple models where the nature of these desirable interactions can be studied in some depth are needed. We examine the structure of interaction between sensing, communicating and controlling in the context of statistical filtering for signals described as Hidden Markov processes and in the context of stabilization of an unstable control system where the sensor and controller are linked via a noisy communication channel. We argue amongst other things, that a fundamental reexamination of information theory is needed to address these questions. These ideas appear to have nontrivial connections to recent work in nonequilibrium statistical mechanics.

Professor Sanjoy K. Mitter received his Ph.D. from the Imperial College of Science and Technology in 1965. He taught at Case Western Reserve University until 1969 when he joined MIT, becoming Professor of Electrical Engineering in 1973. He served as Director of the MIT Laboratory for Information and Decision Systems from 1981-1999 and was Professor of Mathematics at the Scuola Normale, Pisa, Italy from 1986-1996. He held visiting positions at Imperial College, London; University of Groningen, Holland; INRIA, France; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, India and ETH, Zurich, Switzerland. He was named McKay Professor at the University of California Berkeley in March 2000 and was the Russell-Severance-Springer Chair in Fall 2003. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Member in the National Academy of Engineering, and winner of the IEEE Control Systems Award in 2000. He was elected a Foreign Member of Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti in 2003. Professor Mitter's current research interests include Communication and Control in a Networked Environment, the relationship of Statistical and Quantum Physics to Information Theory and Control and Autonomy, and Adaptiveness for Integrative Organization.