This work was part of EPSRC project GR/M71039/01, Automated Optimisation and Control of Low Temperature Plasma Processes, whose research quality was rated internationally leading. Hopgood was Principal Investigator. A Langmuir probe requires 14 heavily interacting continuous parameters to be tuned. A novel simulated annealing method was shown to find better solutions quicker and more reliably than skilled human operators. The paper won a Recognised Paper award at ES-2001 (now known as AI-200x) and was invited for publication in a special issue of KBS journal. A demonstration of the system won the first British Computer Society Machine Intelligence Award in 2002.