IFAC Journal of Systems and Control

IFAC Journal of Systems & Control publishes significant, previously unpublished, and high-quality research papers containing generalizable, extensible and transferable innovations across all aspects of the field of control and automation.

The Journal has considerable interest in multi-, cross-, and trans- disciplinary research from control and systems theory to their application, including articles where the novelty is in the linkages between and across fields. These works need not be novel in a single focus area, but show significant impact and novelty in the combination and extension across multiple areas. They often explore new areas of theory and/or (especially) application at the boundary of systems and control enabling new viewpoints, insight, high/new impact, and/or techniques.

A major requirement for publication is for articles to clearly state:

• Novelty and Context: The novelty of the article and/or its novel elements relative to a large field of work and/or its disciplines of application.
• Impact and Insight: The potential impact and insight created by the work in the relevant fields
• Validation: The clear validation of their results in comparison to other results in the field, and/or experimental test results by the authors and/or other works.


Papers should clearly express all these aspects in (each/all of) the Introduction, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusions sections of the article.

The journal accepts papers across the entire breadth and depth of both theory and application of control systems and system identification, as defined by IFAC Technical Committees and listed below:

• Systems and Signals, Dynamic Systems Modelling, and System Identification
• Design Methods in Linear, Nonlinear, Optimal, Robust, Decentralised, and Distributed Control
• AI / Machine Learning, Computer Systems, Cognition, and Communication Systems
• Mechatronics, Robotics, Human-Machine Systems and Interfaces, and Sensors/Actuators
• Cyber-Physical Manufacturing and Human Systems
• Power Systems and Distribution, Process Control
• Transportation, Aerospace, and Vehicle Systems
• Biomedical, Biological, and Ecological Systems
• Social Systems, Control Education, Economic and Financial Systems


In addition, the Journal strongly encourages "vision papers" about IFAC Clusters and Technical Committee (CC/TC) areas, as well as the organization of special issues from IFAC Technical Committee organised symposiums. Finally, the Journal will also invite special issues and reviews in areas of special interest.

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide attachments of data files, computer programs, and other links as part of the electronic environment of the papers, but not part of the reviewed work.