A history of symposium on stochastic systems theory and its applications, Japan 1968–2018

Abstract This article is an extended version of my lecture on a history of the Symposium on Stochastic Systems Theory and Its Applications (SSS) delivered at the 50th Anniversary meeting on November 1, 2018 ( Katayama, 2018 ). It is shown why and how the Symposium was launched in Kyoto 1968; this is a part of early history of automatic control in Japan. Also, activities of SSS for the past 50 years are briefly reviewed chronologically from my personal point of view.