Eric Rondeau is Professor at the Henri Poincaré - Nancy 1 University, France, where he teaches in the field of Communication Networks. He has developed a new degree in this domain at engineer’s level. His main research interests are now mainly focussed on the architecture design of industrial communication networks. He previously worked on the modelling of distributed information systems, and their consistent mapping on communication systems. He has leaded about ten projects with industry (networks builders and networks users). The results of his research works have been presented in over 60 articles and papers in journals and conferences.

Christophe Aubrun received the Doctorat d’Université from University of Nancy, France in 1992. Since 2003, he is Professor in Computer engineering at University of Nancy. He is the Director of the Institut Universitaire Professionnalisé in Electrical engineering. He has been involved in many projects with industry. His research interests lie in the complex systems diagnosis and fault tolerant control areas with particular applications to water treatment processes. He has coauthored over 30 journal and conference papers.

Thierry Divoux is a full Professor at the Henri Poincaré - Nancy 1 University, France, where he teaches in the field of Communication Networks. He has been during 6 years the Head of the “Telecommunications and Networks Engineering” Department of the University Institute of Technology. His current research activities are relevant to the management of the Networks Quality of Service from a theoretical point of view, and to tele-operation regarding applications. Prof Thierry Divoux founded in 1997 a national working group about Industrial Communication Systems in witch about ten French laboratories are involved. The results of his research works have been presented in over 70 articles and papers in journals and conferences.

Francis Lepage is Professor at the Henri Poincaré-Nancy 1 University, in the “Telecommunications and Networks Engineering” Department. Since 1997 he is Director of Centre de Recherche en Automatique de Nancy (CRAN) and manages about 160 researchers. After starting researches in critical Real Time Controlled Systems, he focused on Communication Networks for manufacturing applications from architecture, protocols, and services to management, including multimedia informations. He is author or co-author of 4 books, 60 publications in scientific journals or communications in International conferences, and 9 final contract reports. He was supervisor of 17 defended PHD thesis. He developped research or education projects with universities in Germany, Luxemburg, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, Canada, Morocco, Tunisia, China.

Dominique Sauter received the Doctorat ès Sciences Degree from the Henri Poincaré University, Nancy1, France, in 1991. Since 1993 he is a full Professor at this University, where he teaches in Control Engineering. He has been the Director of the Institut Universitaire Professionnalisé in Electrical engineering for 3 years. He is a member of the French German institute on automatics and robotics (IAR) where he chaired a working group on Intelligent Control and Fault Diagnosis. He has also been involved in many projects with industry. His current research interests are focused on model-based fault diagnosis and fault tolerant with emphasis on industrial applications. The results of his research works are published in over 30 articles in journals and book contributions and 60 conference papers.