On October 14 – 16, Houston’s Reliant Center again plays host to the annual expo of the Instrumentation, Systems and Automation Society (ISA; Research Triangle Park, N.C.). Over 400 exhibitors will be featured at the ISA Expo 2008, North America’s largest automation and control exhibition, alongside instructor-led training sessions and other popular returning events: the ISA’s Certifïcation Quiz & Conquer, which allows ISA Certifïcation Automation Professionals (CAPs) and Certifïed Control Systems Technicians (CCSTs) to showcase their knowledge competitively; YAPFEST 2008, an exhibition for young automation professionals; and seven individual technology exchanges covering, respectively, security, wireless and networking, process automation, safety, environmental and quality control, and enterprise integration.
Long a highlight of the ISA Expo, this year’s daily keynote addresses are particularly noteworthy. Drawing on his decade-long Smart Dust research, U.C. Berkeley’s Kris Peter (Berkeley, Calif.) kick starts the series with a speech on the evolution of wireless sensor networking. Initiated with the goal of demonstrating that a comprehensive sensor and communication unit could be fabricated to fit within a single cubic millimeter, the Smart Dust project promises to be a game-changing technology. Historical in perspective, Peter’s talk will begin with the pioneering Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) research he conducted for the U.S. military charting key milestones up to and including today’s first wave of industry-standard, wireless-sensor products. On Wednesday, David J. Nagel of George Washington University (Washington D.C.) will give a presentation on instrumentation for low energy nuclear reactions, discussing the need for multiple, sophisticated sensors and automated control for the recently vindicated science of cold fusion. On the final day of the Expo, John Lienhard — national public radio host and M.D. Anderson Professor Emeritus of mechanical engineering and history at the University of Houston (Houston, Tex.) — will present a deep history of feedback control or "How we learned to think negatively in 300 BC."
More information on ISA Expo 2008 is available at www.isa.org/expo. Below is a sampling of the products and services that will be on display.