The twelfth annual IEEE International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (IEEE CASE 2016), sponsored by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), will be held in Fort Worth Texas, USA, August 21 to 24, 2016. IEEE CASE is the flagship automation conference of the IEEE RAS and constitutes the primary forum for cross-industry and multidisciplinary research in automation. Its goal is to provide a broad coverage and dissemination of foundational research in automation among researchers, academics, and practitioners.