New Courses Scheduled Throughout 2025

We are running the following new courses in 2025.

>>> Please register your interest by emailing iscmail@isc-ltd.com or calling (+44) 0141 847 0515.

17 – 19th June 2025: Control Fundamentals II

The Control Fundamentals I course that has been the most popular was developed and refined over two decades and has been presented multiple times at companies around the world. The course was aimed at engineers that are using control techniques in their everyday work but may need a refresher/updating or have only had an introduction to control engineering at university. This new course, entitled Control Fundamentals II, goes beyond the first course material and is stand-alone, so it is not essential to have attended the first course. The more advanced techniques covered are those that have proven to be the most useful and practical in applications. These include auto-tuning, predictive control, Kalman filtering and Optimal Control methods that have proven their worth over the last two decades.

22nd – 24th April 2025: Fundamentals of Predictive Control for Applications Engineers

This new course is being developed following the success of the Control Fundamentals course structure and content, but it focuses on the most successful advanced control technique available, namely model predictive control (MPC). This is used in a wide range of applications across industrial sectors ranging from slow processes to fast machines. It can offer real performance and quality improvements. The course is not intended to be for theoreticians but is focused strongly on the design hints, application methods and clear benefits of predictive controls in industrial applications. Model predictive control (MPC) methods have been applied to very fast machinery control and engine control problems mirroring the success achieved over the last 20 years in the petrochemicals, chemicals and pharmaceutical industries. The advances in algorithms/solvers and in hardware/software allow MPC to be used in more complex, nonlinear and fast applications. The course will make it simple for engineers in industry to apply MPC methods and it will provide them with an intuitive understanding of the theory without going into the full mathematical treatment of the subject. It will also cover the little design hints and “tricks” that enable a practical implementation to be achieved, with less aggravation, in a shorter commissioning time. An agenda for the course will be available soon.

9 – 11th September 2025: Introductory Course on AI and Machine Learning for Industrial Applications

This new course has been developed based on the experience of providing specialist Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Courses over the last 4 years to a range of international companies both at their premises and virtually. It will follow the successful route employed in the control fundamentals course in dwelling more on the engineering issues and applications problems rather than the theoretical background. Artificial intelligence is having a major impact in all areas of life but the uptake in control and condition monitoring systems has been relatively slow, but it is likely to accelerate rapidly. The main benefit is that the existing classical and advanced controls can all be improved using data-driven methods enabling higher performance to be achieved and the degree of robustness to be improved. Fully black-box AI based controllers are theoretically interesting but do not seem so practical. However, AI enhanced traditional or advanced controllers can have much to offer and this course will describe the most practical and important developments. The course agenda for this course will be available shortly.

Successful Recent Control Fundamentals Course

The latest control fundamentals course was run by ISC in Glasgow from the 12th to 14th November. It was well attended with a range of companies with lively discussions during the course and coffee break times. A new feature of the course was the final presentation covering developments in artificial intelligence and machine learning that will have a significant impact on control and condition monitoring systems. Dr Pawel Majecki presented many of the talks and supervised the hands-on simulation and design sessions. Professor Mike Grimble provided some of the motivational sessions and covered some of the new areas of AI/data driven control that is important for control. It is particularly gratifying when both speakers and delegates really enjoyed an event and for that we thank the attendees for their interest and kind words.