What are the best journals for Control and Systems Engineering?

From a 17,500-venue index, the highest-ranked Control and Systems Engineering journals include Annual Reviews in Control, Machine Intelligence Research, The International Journal of Robotics Research, IEEE Transactions on Robotics, IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica. The top 40 of 195 ranked venues are listed on this page; all 40 are Scimago Q1. Each shows its open-access status and indexing, and predatory venues are excluded. For a shortlist matched to your specific paper, use the Journal Finder (15 credits; free account starts with 25).

How were these Control and Systems Engineering journals ranked?

Journals are placed by two independent classifications, OpenAlex's and Scimago's, plus any documented corrections. A journal both place under Control and Systems Engineering ranks ahead, within its Scimago quartile, of one only OpenAlex places there — because Scimago does not cover it, files it as Multidisciplinary, or files it under a neighbouring subject or only under a broad “(miscellaneous)” category (which counts as agreement when Control and Systems Engineering is the journal's main OpenAlex subfield). 9 journals OpenAlex files under Control and Systems Engineering are left out because OpenAlex's main field for them and Scimago's categories both place them in another discipline. By Scimago quartile first (Q1 → Q4, then venues without one). Within a quartile, journals both sources place under Control and Systems Engineering come first, then venues whose main OpenAlex subfield is Control and Systems Engineering come before those that list it second or third, and ties go to OpenAlex cites/paper over a 2-year window. A venue whose main subfield is unrelated to Control and Systems Engineering — fewer than a quarter of the venues filed under that subfield (or fewer than five) are also filed under Control and Systems Engineering — is listed after all the others. Cites/paper is a transparent citation rate, not a licensed Impact Factor, and journals flagged as predatory are excluded.

Why don't all Control and Systems Engineering journals show a quartile?

Scimago doesn't cover every journal — many strong regional and open-access venues are absent from it. We show "no Scimago quartile" for those rather than hide them; it's a coverage gap, not a quality judgement.

How do I find the best journal for my specific Control and Systems Engineering paper?

Paste your title and abstract into the Journal Finder — it returns a shortlist matched to your paper's topic from the same index, with acceptance-fit signals, open-access status, and predatory flags. A free account starts with 25 welcome credits; each run costs 15.

Control and Systems Engineering · 195 journals ranked · top 40 listed

Best journals for Control and Systems Engineering

The top 40 of 195 Control and Systems Engineering journals, ranked by Scimago quartile, then by whether OpenAlex and Scimago agree on the subject and how central Control and Systems Engineering is to each journal, then OpenAlex cites/paper (2-year window), leaving out journals both place in another discipline, drawn from a 17,500-venue index. Predatory venues are excluded; the FAQ below gives the exact ranking rule. These are field-wide rankings — for a shortlist matched to your specific paper, paste your title and abstract into the Journal Finder (a free account starts with 25 welcome credits).

Data as of 15 November 2026 — the date our venue index was last rebuilt from OpenAlex and Scimago.

Match journals to your paper →

All Best open-access journals

1
Annual Reviews in Control
14.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
2
Machine Intelligence Research
10.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
3
The International Journal of Robotics Research
10.1 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
4
IEEE Transactions on Robotics
10.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
5
IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica
10.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of Science
6
Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing
9.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
7
IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics
9.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
8
IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics
8.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
9
IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics Systems
7.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
10
IEEE Transactions on Automation Science and Engineering
7.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
11
Nonlinear Dynamics
6.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
12
Automatica
6.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
13
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control
5.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
14
ISA Transactions
5.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
15
Journal of Intelligent & Robotic Systems
5.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
16
Applied System Innovation
5.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
17
IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics
4.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
18
IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
4.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
19
Control Engineering Practice
4.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of Science
20
IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology
4.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
21
Robotics and Autonomous Systems
4.5 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
22
Robotica
3.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Cambridge University Press
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
23
International Journal of Systems Science
3.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Taylor & Francis
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
24
Journal of Process Control
3.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
25
Journal of the Franklin Institute
3.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
26
Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems
3.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Taylor & Francis
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
27
Mechatronics
3.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
28
International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control
3.1 cites/paper · Q1 · Wiley
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
29
Systems & Control Letters
3.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
30
European Journal of Control
2.3 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
31
Nonlinear Analysis Hybrid Systems
1.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of Science
32
IEEE Control Systems Letters
1.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
33
Advanced Engineering Informatics
10.8 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
34
Journal of Sound and Vibration
5.6 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
35
Computers & Chemical Engineering
5.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
36
Mechanism and Machine Theory
5.0 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
37
International Journal of Non-Linear Mechanics
4.9 cites/paper · Q1 · Elsevier BV
ScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
38
Robotics
4.2 cites/paper · Q1 · Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of SciencePubMed
39
Journal of low frequency noise, vibration and active control
3.9 cites/paper · Q1 · SAGE Publishing
Open AccessDOAJScopusWeb of Science
40
Autonomous Robots
3.7 cites/paper · Q1 · Springer Science+Business Media
ScopusWeb of Science

“Cites/paper” is the OpenAlex 2-year citation rate — a transparent signal, not a licensed Impact Factor. Many regional and open-access journals are strong but aren’t covered by Scimago, so they show “no Scimago quartile”; that’s a coverage gap, not a quality judgement.