A research effort to develop methods for automated generation of control systems that can be traced directly to the design requirements is documented. This research is being conducted under the Nuclear Energy Research Initiative for the U.S. Department of Energy. The final goal is to allow the control designer to specify only high-level requirements and stress factors that the control system must survive (e.g., a list of transients or a requirement to withstand a single failure). To this end, the "control engine" automatically selects and validates control algorithms and parameters that are optimized to the current state of the plant, and that have been tested under the prescribed stress factors. The control engine then automatically generates the control software from validated algorithms. The automated design approach also lends itself to a control system structure that captures the design requirements and permits the optimum control solution to be maintained during the plant life.