The ETFA conference series is the prime, and largest, IEEE-sponsored event dedicated to factory automation and emerging technologies in industrial automation. The aim of the ETFA conference series is to provide researchers and practitioners from industry and academia with a platform to report on recent developments in the newly emerging areas of technology and their potential applications to factory automation. The technical success of the ETFA conference series also testifies to the rapid evolution of the area of industrial automation in the recent decades. The proceedings of the conference give a fairly accurate picture of the state of the art of the area. ETFA conferences were fortunate to attract high quality papers, many of which were later published in the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. The ETFA conference was held for the first time in 1992, in Melbourne, Australia, and attracted for a start, together with a satellite workshop, over two hundred attendees. Since 1992, the ETFA conferences have been hosted by some of the leading academic and research establishments including: University of Palm Cove-Cairns (North Queensland, Australia) in 1993, University of Tokyo (Japan) in 1994, INRIA (Paris, France) in 1995, University of Hawaii (Hawaii, US) in 1996, University of California at Los Angeles (US) in 1997, Polytechnic University of Catalonia (Barcelona, Spain) in 1999, University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis (Nice, France) in 2001, University of Lisbon (Portugal) in 2003, University of Catania (Italy) in 2005, University of Prague (Czech Republic) in 2006, University of Patras (Greece) in 2007, Helmut-Schmidt University in Hamburg (Germany) in 2008, Technical University of Catalonia (Spain) in 2009, University of the Basque Country (Bilbao, Spain) in 2010, Paul Sabatier University (Toulouse, France) in 2011 and AGH University of Science and Technology (Krakow, Poland) in 2012. This year the event is sponsored by the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society and the University of Cagliari, Italy. ETFA 2013 will be held from 10 to 13 September 2013.