The University adjusted its majors setting and merged some teachers originally engaged in the research and teaching of automatic control theory in the Department of Computer Science (i.e. the former Department of Automatic Control) into the Department of Automation to strengthen the theoretical foundation of the automation discipline. Later, the Control Theory Teaching and Research Group was established. In order to adapt to the development of national economic construction and to meet the challenges of the new technological revolution, the Department of Automation has made significant adjustments and developments in the construction and layout of its disciplines during this period. First, it updated the professional contents: on the one hand, it continued to consolidate and improve its advantages in control engineering and strengthen the research on the foundation of modern control theory and other new technologies; on the other hand, it took every chance to carry out teaching and scientific researches in the subjects of information technology and system engineering. With the support of Prof. ChangJiong, the famous information scientist and the member of the academic department of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Teaching and Research Group of Information Processing and Pattern Recognition and the corresponding doctoral degree awarding sites were established; and under the leadership of Prof. ZhengWeimin, the Systems Engineering Research Laboratory was established. At the same time, the Department actively carried out discipline construction by setting up the Institute of Automation Science and Technology in 1981, with Professor Chang Jiong as the first director. In addition, it vigorously developedgraduate education, and has set four graduate majors (disciplines), namely, Automatic Control Theory and Applications, Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Control, Systems Engineering, and Automation Instrumentation and Devices, which are among the first disciplines or majors announced by the Nation to have the right to confer doctoral degrees. After that, the Department of Automation established the System Emulation Laboratory (later renamed as the System Simulation Laboratory), which was equipped with advanced analog and digital computers at that time.