There are many exiting developments in the control system industry. This ranges from self driving cars to smart houses. Industry is becoming safer with more advanced control systems. The Internet of Things (IOT) is an exiting development in control systems.
I have worked on many different control systems ranging from Power Stations, Electrical Distribution, Energy Management, Building Management, Oil Pipelines and Advertisement Monitoring on broadcast radio and television. Many of the systems were geographically dispersed and used private Wide Area Networks to communicate. Very often the same protocols are used that the internet uses, but there is no connection to the internet.
The IOT is an exiting development with serious applications other than your fridge telling you the milk has gone bad. As the computing power of devices increase the IOT will become less centralised and there will be more peer to peer communication between devices. Applications are e.g. smart electricity meters managing the energy consumption of neighbouring buildings, or vehicles on the same road communicating between each other to prevent accidents.
The IOT is unfortunately still very immature technology and specifically in the security of consumer grade devices.
I am available for any industrial control or IOT projects and believe I can make a valuable contribution to your project.