IEEE CSS Distinguished Member Award | IEEE Control Systems Society

2023

Jorge Cortés

For significant technical contributions in the area of cooperative control and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society.

Jing Sun

For significant technical contributions in the area of control of marine and automotive propulsion systems and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society.

Andrea Serrani

Biography

Andrea Serrani (M’94) received the Laurea (B.Eng.) (summa cum laude) degree in electrical engineering from the University of Ancona, Ancona, Italy, in 1993, the M.S. degree in systems science and mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA, in 1996, the Ph.D. degree in artificial intelligence systems from the University of Ancona in 1997, and the D.Sc. degree in systems science and mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis in 2000.

From 1994 to 1999, he was a Fulbright Fellow with Washington University in St. Louis. From 2004 to 2007, he served as the Technical Leader of the Reusable Launch Vehicle area of the AFOSR/AFRL Collaborative Center for Control Sciences, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA. He held visiting positions at the University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, and the University of Padova, Padua, Italy, and multiple summer faculty positions at the Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, OH, including four AF-SFFP Fellowships. Since 2002, he has been with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, The Ohio State University, Columbus OH, where he is currently a Professor and the Chair of Graduate Studies. He has authored or co-authored over 150 articles in journals, proceedings of international conferences and book chapters, and has co-authored the book Robust Autonomous Guidance: An Internal Model Approach (Springer-Verlag). His research interests are at the intersection of methodological aspects of nonlinear, adaptive and geometric control theory with advanced applications in aerospace and marine systems, fluidic systems, robotics, and automotive engineering.

Dr. Serrani is a member of International Federation of Automatic Control and American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. He received the Certificate of Outstanding Service as an Associate Editor (AE) of Automatica, was selected three times as an Outstanding Reviewer of the IEEE Transaction on Automatic Control, and three times as an Excellent Reviewer of the AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics. He served, among other positions, as the Publications Chair of the 53rd and 52nd IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, and the 2009 American Control Conference. He has served as an Editor-at-Large of the 53rd and 51st IEEE CDC, and the 2017 ACC. He has been a Distinguished Lecturer of the IEEE Control System Society (CSS) and has delivered semi-plenary lectures at the 8th IFAC Symposium on Nonlinear Control Systems and the 2011 Chinese Control and Decision Conference. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and also serves in the IEEE CSS and IFAC Editorial Boards. He is a past AE of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Automatica, and the International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control. He will serve as the Program Chair of the 2019 ACC, and is currently serving as General co-Chair for the 2022 IEEE CDC.

Affiliation(s)

Ohio State University

United States

For significant technical contributions in the area of nonlinear control and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society.

2022

Dawn Tilbury

For significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society.

Li-Chen Fu

For significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society.

2021

Robert Bitmead

Sandra Hirche

Website

Biography

Sandra Hirche holds the TUM Liesel Beckmann Distinguished Professorship and heads the Chair of Information-oriented Control in the Faculty of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Technical University of Munich (TUM), Germany (since 2013). She received the diploma engineer degree in Aeronautical and Aerospace Engineering in 2002 from the Technical University Berlin, Germany, and the Doctor of Engineering degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering in 2005 from the Technische Universität München, Munich, Germany.

From 2005 - 2007 she has been a PostDoc Fellow of the Japanese Society for the Promotion of Science at the Fujita Laboratory at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan. Prior to her present appointment she has been an Associate Professor at TUM. Her main research interests include learning, cooperative, and networked control with applications in human-robot interaction, multi-robot systems, and general robotics.

She has published more than 200 papers in international journals, books and refereed conferences. She has received multiple awards such as the Rohde & Schwarz Award for her PhD thesis, the IFAC World Congress Best Poster Award in 2005 and – together with students – Best Paper Awards of IEEE Worldhaptics and IFAC Conference of Manoeuvring and Control of Marine Craft in 2009 and the Outstanding Student Paper Award of the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control 2018. In 2013 she has been awarded with an ERC Starting Grant on the “Control based on Human Models” and in 2019 with the ERC Consolidator Grant on “Safe data-driven control for human-centric systems”.

Sandra Hirche is Fellow of the IEEE and received the IEEE Control System Society Distinguished Member Award. She has served as IEEE Control System Society (CSS) Vice-President for Member Activities (2014/15), as Chair for Student Activities in the IEEE CSS (2009-2014), as Chair of the CSS Awards Subcommittee on “CDC Best Student-Paper Award” (2010-2014), and has been elected member of the Board of Governors of IEEE CSS (2010-2013). She has been Co-Chair of the IFAC TC 1.5 “Networked Control Systems” (2010-2017).

Affiliation(s)

Technische Universitaet Muenchen

Germany

Masayuki Fujita

Website

Biography

Masayuki Fujita is a Professor at The University of Tokyo and a Visiting Professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology. He is also the Vice President of SICE in 2020. He was the Research Supervisor for Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) Core Research for Evolutional Science and Technology (CREST) during 2012-2019. He received the Dr. of Eng. degree in Electrical Engineering from Waseda University, Tokyo, in 1987. Prior to his appointment at The University of Tokyo, he held professor/faculty appointments at Tokyo Institute of Technology, Kanazawa University and Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. His research interests include passivity-based control in robotics and robust control. He is the coauthor of the book "Passivity-Based Control and Estimation in Networked Robotics" (Springer, 2015). He was the CSS Vice President Conference Activities and a member of CSS Board of Governors. He served as the General Chair of the 2010 IEEE Multi-conference on Systems and Control. He was also the Director of SICE, the Head of SICE Technical Division on Control, the Chair of SICE Technical Committee on Control Theory. He served as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, Automatica, Asian Journal of Control, and an Editor for the SICE Journal of Control, Measurement, and System Integration. He is a recipient of the 2008 IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology Outstanding Paper Award, was a Plenary Lecturer of 54th IEEE Conference on Decision and Control in 2015, and was an IEEE Control System Society Distinguished Lecturer during 2017-2019. He also received the 2010 SICE Education Award and the Outstanding Paper Awards from the SICE and ISCIE. He is a Fellow of IEEE and SICE.

Affiliation(s)

University of Tokyo

Japan

2020

Warren Dixon

Website

Biography

Prof. Warren Dixon received his Ph.D. in 2000 from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from Clemson University. He worked as a research staff member and Eugene P. Wigner Fellow at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) until 2004, when he joined the University of Florida in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department. His main research interest has been the development and application of Lyapunov-based control techniques for uncertain nonlinear systems. His work has been recognized by the 2019 IEEE Control Systems Technology Award, (2017-2018 & 2012-2013) University of Florida College of Engineering Doctoral Dissertation Mentoring Award, 2015 & 2009 American Automatic Control Council (AACC) O. Hugo Schuck (Best Paper) Award, the 2013 Fred Ellersick Award for Best Overall MILCOM Paper, the 2011 American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) Dynamics Systems and Control Division Outstanding Young Investigator Award, the 2006 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) Early Academic Career Award, an NSF CAREER Award (2006-2011), the 2004 Department of Energy Outstanding Mentor Award, and the 2001 ORNL Early Career Award for Engineering Achievement. He is an ASME Fellow and IEEE Fellow, an IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Distinguished Lecturer, and served as the Director of Operations for the Executive Committee of the IEEE CSS Board of Governors (2012-2015). He was awarded the Air Force Commander's Public Service Award (2016) for his contributions to the U.S. Air Force Science Advisory Board. He is currently or formerly an associate editor for ASME Journal of Dynamic Systems, Measurement and Control, Automatica, IEEE Control Systems, IEEE Transactions on Systems Man and Cybernetics: Part B Cybernetics, and the International Journal of Robust and Nonlinear Control.

Affiliation(s)

University of Florida

United States

For your significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society

Acceptance Speech

Faryar Jabbari

For your significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society

Acceptance Speech

Jonathan How

1 (Northeastern U.S.)

Website

Biography

Jonathan P. How is the Richard C. Maclaurin Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a B.A.Sc. (Aerospace) from the University of Toronto in 1987, and his S.M. and Ph.D. in Aeronautics and Astronautics from MIT in 1990 and 1993, respectively, and then studied for 1.5 years at MIT as a postdoctoral associate. Prior to joining MIT in 2000, he was an assistant professor in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Stanford University. Dr. How was the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Control Systems Magazine (2015-19), an associate editor for the AIAA Journal of Aerospace Information Systems (2012-21) and IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems (2018-21). He was the Program Vice-chair (tutorials) for the 2021 Conference on Decision and Control and will be the Program Chair for the American Control Conference in 2025. He was elected to the Board of Governors of the IEEE Control System Society (CSS) for 2020-22, is on the IEEE CSS Long Range Planning Committee (2022 – ), is a member of the IEEE CSS Technical Committee on Aerospace Control and the Technical Committee on Intelligent Control, was a member of the IEEE Fellows Selection committee for CSS (2021-22), and since 2021, he serves as the AIAA Director on the American Automatic Control Council. He is also the Director of the Ford-MIT Alliance and was a member of the USAF Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) from 2014-17. His research focuses on robust planning and learning under uncertainty with an emphasis on multiagent systems, and he was the planning and control lead for the MIT DARPA Urban Challenge team. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including being inducted into the University of Toronto Engineering Hall of Distinction (2022), receiving the 2020 IEEE CSS Distinguished Member Award, the 2020 AIAA Intelligent Systems Award, the 2015 AeroLion Technologies Outstanding Paper Award for Unmanned Systems, the 2015 IEEE CSS Video Clip Contest, the 2011 IFAC Automatica award for best applications paper, and the 2002 Institute of Navigation Burka Award. He also received the Air Force Commander's Public Service Award in 2017. He is a Fellow of IEEE (2018) and AIAA (2016) and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2021.

Affiliation(s)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

United States

For your significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society

Acceptance Speech

Kirsten Morris

For your significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society

Acceptance Speech

2019

Daniel Rivera

For outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society most notably for leadership of the CSS Outreach Program

Venkataramanan (Ragu) Balakrishnan

For outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society through governance and leadership in the CSS Board of Governors and Executive Committee

2018

Maria Prandini

Biography

Maria Prandini was born in Brescia, Italy, on September 8, 1969. She received the Laurea degree cum laude in Electrical Engineering from the Politecnico di Milano (1994), and the Ph.D. degree in Information Technology from the Universita degli Studi di Brescia (1998). After her Ph.D. studies, she was a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Electronics Research Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, from 1998 to 2000. She also held visiting positions at Delft University of Technology (1998), Cambridge University (2000), University of California, Berkeley (2005), and Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich (2006).

From December 2002 to January 2011, she was Assistant Professor at the Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione of the Politecnico di Milano. From February 2011 to February 2018, she was Associate Professor at the same department, which is now named Dipartimento di Elettronica, Informazione e Bioingegneria, where she is currently Full Professor.

Her research interests include randomized methods for system analysis and design; modeling, verification and control of stochastic and hybrid systems; and multi-agent systems, involving distributed optimization and game theoretic solutions for cooperative and noncooperative decision making. Her research studies were motivated mainly by applications to the transportation and energy domains.

Since 1999, she has been teaching courses in control at the undergraduate and graduate levels, in Italy as well as at international institutions abroad. In particular, she was a lecturer of a Ph.D. course on Stochastic Systems: Estimation and Control at the University of California, Berkeley (spring 1999), a master course on Hybrid systems at the University of Stuttgart (first semester 2014-15), and a Ph.D course on Hybrid systems at Lund University (October 2015). She is a lecturer of a master course on Nonlinear control at her institution, where she has also been teaching advanced courses for Ph.D. students on Hybrid Systems and Cooperative and Noncooperative Optimization and Control.

She is currently Chair of the Automation and Control Engineering Program at Politecnico di Milano.

She was the principal investigator in the EC-funded H2020 project UnCoVerCPS \Unifying Control and Verification of Cyber-Physical Systems" (2015{2018), being responsible for the scientific activities of the PoliMi team, which include the development of distributed optimization techniques for networked systems. Previously, she contributed to EC-funded projects on modeling, verification and control of stochastic and hybrid systems with application to the energy and transportation domains. More specifically, she was workpackage leader in the FP5 project HYBRIDGE \Distributed control and stochastic analysis of hybrid systems, supporting safety-critical real-time systems design" (2002{2005), and principal investigator in the FP6 project iFly \Safety, Complexity and Responsibility based design and validation of highly automated Air Trac Management" (2007{2011) and in the FP7 project MoVeS \Modelling, verification and control of complex systems: From foundations to power network applications" (2010-2013).

She has been a member of the editorial boards of leading journals in control as an associate editor (IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2009-2013, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, 2009-2015, and Nonlinear Analysis: Hybrid Systems, 2011-2015) and as a discussion editor (European Journal of Control, 2007-2013). She is a member of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Conference Editorial Board (since 2007) and of the European Control Association (EUCA) Conference Editorial Board (since 2013) as an associate editor. She is currently associate editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control of Network Systems. She has been active in the IEEE CSS and the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). She is a member of the IFAC Technical Committee on Discrete Event and Hybrid Systems (since 2008). She has been appointed member of the IFAC Policy Committee for the term 2017-2020. She has been contributing to the activities and governance of the IEEE CSS in different roles. From 2013 to 2015, she was editor for the CSS Electronic Publications. She was elected member of the IEEE CSS Board of Governors for a three-year term (2015-2017). She was IEEE CSS Vice-President for Conference Activities in 2016 and 2017. She has been an elected member of the CSS nominating committee for the year 2018.

She is currently a member of SIGBED Board of Directors.

She has been a member of the program committees of several international conferences and either organizing or contributing to invited sessions, workshops, and tutorials. She was co-chair of the 21st ACM International Conference on Hybrid Systems: Computation and Control (HSCC 2018).

Currently, she is co-program chair of IEEE Conference on Decisione and Control 2020 and program chair of IEEE Conference on Decisione and Control 2021.

In 2018, she received the IEEE CSS Distinguished Member Award for contributions to stochastic, hybrid, and distributed control systems and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society related to electronic publications and conference activities.

In 2019 she was elevated to IEEE Fellow, effective 1 January 2020, with the following citation: “for contributions to stochastic, hybrid and distributed control systems theory.”

Affiliation(s)

Politecnico di Milano

Italy

For contributions to stochastic, hybrid, and distributed control systems and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society related to electronic publications and conference activities

Miroslav Krstic

For contributions to adaptive, nonlinear and stochastic control and outstanding long-term service to the Control Systems Society

2017

Linda Bushnell

Biography

Linda Bushnell is a Research Associate Professor and Director of the Networked Control Systems Lab at the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Washington. She received her Ph.D. in EE from UC Berkeley in 1994, her M.A. in Mathematics from UC Berkeley in 1989, her M.S. in EE from UConn in 1987, and her B.S. in EE from UConn in 1985. She also received her MBA from the University of Washington Foster School of Business in 2010. Her research interests include networked control systems, control of complex networks, and secure-control.She is a recipient of the US Government Superior Civilian Service Award, NSF ADVANCE Fellowship, and IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) Recognition Award. She was the Co-Editor of a special issue of the Asian Journal of Control and Guest Editor for three issues of the Control Systems Magazine. She has been the Organizer/Co-Organizer of four invited/special sessions. She is a Senior Member of the IEEE (1999), and has been a member of the IEEE since 1985, a member of the IEEE CSS since 1990, and a member of the IEEE Women in Engineering since 2013. For IEEE CSS, she is a Distinguished Lecturer, a member of the Women in Control Committee, a member of the TC Control Education, a member of the History Committee, Liaison to IEEE Women in Engineering, a 2014 Appointed Member to the Board of Governors, and a Member of the Board of Governors for 2015 - 2017. She was the Secretary-Administrator and Member of the Executive Committee from 2001 – 2007, Member of the Board of Governors 1999 – 2007, Associate Editor of the IEEE CSM 1999 – 2002, Vice-Chair for Invited Sessions for 2001 CCA, Chairperson of the History Standing Committee 1997 – 2000, and Vice-Chair for Invited Sessions for 2000 CDC. For the American Automatic Control Council (AACC), she is currently the Treasurer of the AACC and a Member of the Technical Committee on Control Education. She was the Workshop Chair for 2013 ACC, Technical Program Chair for 2007 ACC, Publicity Chair for 2005 ACC, Vice-Chair for Publications for 1999 ACC, and Vice-Chair for Invited Sessions for 1998 ACC. For the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), she is the General Co-Chair for the Conference on High Confidence Networked Systems (HiCoNS) at CPSWeek 2014, and was the Technical Program Co-Chair for the HiCoNS at CPSWeek 2013. She has been a member of multipleTechnical Program Committees for the CDC, ACC, HiCoNS, and ISIC conferences.

www.ee.washington.edu/people/faculty/bushnell/

Affiliation(s)

University of Washington

United States

For contributions to networked control systems and outstanding long-term service to the Society

2016

Anuradha Annaswamy

Website

Biography

Dr. Anuradha Annaswamy received her Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Yale University in 1985. She has been a member of the faculty at Yale, Boston University, and MIT where currently she is the director of the Active-Adaptive Control Laboratory and a Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Her research interests pertain to adaptive control theory and applications to aerospace, automotive, and propulsion systems, cyber-physical systems science, and CPS applications to Smart Grids, Smart Cities, and Smart Infrastructures. She is the author of a hundred journal publications and numerous conference publications, co-author of a graduate textbook on adaptive control (2004), co-editor of several reports including “Systems & Control for the future of humanity, research agenda: Current and future roles, impact and grand challenges,” (Elsevier) “IEEE Vision for Smart Grid Control: 2030 and Beyond,” (IEEE Xplore) and Impact of Control Technology, (ieeecss.org/main/IoCT-report, ieeecss.org/general/IoCT2-report).

Dr. Annaswamy has received several awards including the George Axelby and Control Systems Magazine best paper awards from the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), the Presidential Young Investigator award from NSF, the Hans Fisher Senior Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technische Universität München, the Donald Groen Julius Prize from the Institute of Mechanical Engineers, a Distinguished Member Award, and a Distinguished Lecturer Award from IEEE CSS. Dr. Annaswamy is a Fellow of the IEEE and IFAC. She has served as the Vice President for Conference Activities (2014-15) and is currently serving as the VP for Technical Activities (2017-18) in the Executive Committee of the IEEE CSS.

Affiliation(s)

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

United States

For contributions to adaptive control systems with applications ranging from dynamic pricing for smart cities to cyber-physical systems, and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society related to membership activities

Mathukumalli Vidyasagar

Biography

Mathukumalli Vidyasagar is currently Cecil & Ida Green Chair in Systems Biology at the University of Texas at Dallas. His current research interests are in stochastic processes and their applications to computational biology with special emphasis on cancer biology, and to mathematical finance. He was born in Guntur, India on September 29, 1947. He received the B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in electrical engineering from the University of Wisconsin in Madison, in 1965, 1967 and 1969 respectively. Between 1969 and 1989, he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering at various universities in the USA and Canada. His last overseas job was with the University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON, Canada, where he served between 1980 and 1989. In 1989 he returned to India as the Director of the newly created Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) in Bangalore, under the Ministry of Defence, Government of India. In 2000 he moved to the Indian private sector as an Executive Vice President of India's largest software company, Tata Consultancy Services, where he created the Advanced Technology Center, an industrial R&D laboratory of around 80 engineers. In 2009 he retired from TCS and joined the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering & Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas, as a Cecil & Ida Green Chair in Systems Biology. In March 2010 he was named as the Founding Head of the Bioengineering Department. He is a Fellow of several scientific societies including IEEE, and has received several awards in recognition of his research, including the IEEE Control Systems Award in 2008. Earlier he had received the Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize in 2000, and the Distinguished Service Citation from his alma mater, the University of Wisconsin.

Affiliation(s)

University of Texas, Dallas

United States

For fundamental contributions to robust and nonlinear control theory with applications ranging from robotics to computational biology, and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society

2015

Francesco Bullo

For scientific contributions to nonlinear control, network systems and distributed control with application to robotic coordination, power grids, and social networks, and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society related to publication and technical activities

Frank Allgöwer

Website

Biography

Frank Allgöwer is director of the Institute for Systems Theory and Automatic Control and professor in the Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

He studied Engineering Cybernetics and Applied Mathematics at the University of Stuttgart and the University of California at Los Angeles respectively. He received his Ph.D. degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Stuttgart. Prior to his present appointment, he held a professorship in the electrical engineering department at ETH Zurich. He also held visiting positions at the California Institute of Technology, the NASA Ames Research Center, the DuPont Company and the University of California at Santa Barbara.

His main interests in research and teaching are in the area of systems and control with emphasis on the development of new methods for the analysis and control of nonlinear systems. Of equal importance to the theoretical developments are practical applications and the experimental evaluation of benefits and limitations of the developed methods. Applications range from control of atomic force microscopes and biomedical applications to the control of roller coasters and systems biology.

At present Frank Allgöwer is Editor for the journal Automatica, Associate Editor of the Journal of Process Control and is on the editorial board of several further journals including the Journals of Robust and Nonlinear Control, IET Control Theory and Applications, Canadian Journal of Chemical Engineering, the journal Chemical Engineering Science and the Springer Lecture Notes in Control and Information Sciences Series. Among others he serves on the scientific council of the German Society for Measurement and Control (GMA), is on the Board of Governors of the IEEE Control System Society, is chairman of the IFAC Technical Committee on Nonlinear Systems, is member of the IFAC Policy Committee and chairman of the International Affairs Committee of IEEE CSS and has been a member of the council of the European Union Control Association.

Frank Allgöwer has been organizer or co-organizer of several international conferences and has published over 150 scientific articles. Frank Allgöwer received several recognitions for his work including the IEEE distinguished lectureship, the appointment as IFAC Fellow and the Leibniz prize, which is the most prestigious prize in science and engineering awarded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Affiliation(s)

University of Stuttgart

Germany

For scientific contributions to the analysis and control of nonlinear systems with applications ranging from control of atomic force microscopes to biomedical applications, and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society related to technical activities

2013

Shuzhi Sam Ge

Biography

Professor Shuzhi Sam Ge is the Director of Social Robotics Lab, Interactive Digital Media Institute, and Supervisor of Edutainment Robotics Lab, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the National University of Singapore. He obtained his BSc from Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and PhD and DIC from Imperial College London. He has (co)-authored three books: Adaptive Neural Network Control of Robotic Manipulators (World Scientific, 1998), Stable Adaptive Neural Network Control (Kluwer, 2001) and Switched Linear Systems: Control and Design (Springer-Verlag, 2005), over 300 international journal and conference papers, and edited a book: Autonomous Mobile Robots: Sensing, Control, Decision Making and Applications (Taylor and Francis, 2006).

He is the Editor-in-Chief, International Journal of Social Robotics, Springer, and the book Editor of the Taylor & Francis’ Automation and Control Engineering Series. He has served/been serving as an Associate Editor for a number of flagship journals including IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology, IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, and Automatica. At IEEE Control Systems Society, he served/serves as Vice President for Technical Activities, 2009-2010, and Vice President for Membership Activities, 2011. He is an Fellow of IFAC, IEEE, and IET.

He was the recipient of Inaugural Temasek Young Investigator Award, Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), Singapore, 2002; and National Technology Award of the National Science & Technology Board, Singapore,1999. He provides technical consultancy to industrial and government agencies. His current research interests include social robotics, mind robotics, multimedia fusion, adaptive control, intelligent systems and artificial intelligence. He is the founder of Personal E-Motion Pte Ltd and Portege Pte Ltd.

Affiliation(s)

National University of Singapore

Singapore

For contributions to intelligent control of nonlinear systems and robotics and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society through technical and membership related activities

2012

Mario Sznaier

For contributions to multiobjective robust control, dynamic vision and imaging, and identification, and for outstanding service to the Control Systems Society in his role as Executive Director and member of its Board of Governors

Alessandro Astolfi

Biography

Alessandro Astolfi (F’09) was born in Rome, Italy, in 1967. He received the Graduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of Rome, Rome, in 1991, the M.Sc. degree in information theory and the Ph.D. degree with Medal of Honor with a thesis on discontinuous stabilization of nonholonomic systems from ETH-Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, both in 1995 and the Ph.D. degree for his work on nonlinear robust control from the University of Rome La Sapienza, Rome, Italy, in 1996.,Since 1996, he has been with the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, Imperial College London, London, U.K., where he is currently a Professor of nonlinear control theory and the Head of the Control and Power Group. From 1998 to 2003, he was also an Associate Professor with the Department of Electronics and Information, Politecnico of Milano. Since 2005, he has also been a Professor with Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ingegneria Informatica, University of Rome Tor Vergata, Rome. He has been a Visiting Lecturer in nonlinear control with several universities, including ETH-Zurich (1995–1996); Terza University of Rome (1996); Rice University, Houston, TX, USA (1999); Kepler University, Linz, Austria (2000); SUPELEC, Paris, France (2001); and Northeastern University (2013). He is the author of more than 150 journal papers, 30 book chapters, and more than 240 papers in refereed conference proceedings. He is the author (with D. Karagiannis and R. Ortega) of the monograph Nonlinear and Adaptive Control With Applications (Springer-Verlag). His research interests include mathematical control theory and control applications, with special emphasis on the problems of discontinuous stabilization, robust and adaptive control, observer design, and model reduction.

Prof. Astolfi was the recipient of the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS) A. Ruberti Young Researcher Prize (2007), the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Googol Best New Application Paper Award (2009), the IEEE CSS George S. Axelby Outstanding Paper Award (2012), and the Automatica Best Paper Award (2017). He was also the recipient of the 2015 Sir Harold Hartley Medal, for outstanding contribution to the technology of measurement and control, from the Institute of Measurement and Control. He is a Distinguished Member of the IEEE CSS, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the International Federation of Automatic Control. He served as an Associate Editor for the Automatica, the Systems and Control Letters, the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, the International Journal of Control, the European Journal of Control, and the Journal of the Franklin Institute; an Area Editor for the International Journal of Adaptive Control and Signal Processing; a Senior Editor for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control; and an Editor-in-Chief for the European Journal of Control. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief for the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control. He served as the Chair of the IEEE CSS Conference Editorial Board (2010–2017) and in the International Program Committee (IPC) of several international conferences. He has been a Member of the IEEE Fellow Committee (2016, 2019).

Affiliation(s)

Imperial College London

United Kingdom

University of Rome Tor Vergata

Italy

For contributions to nonlinear control theory and adaptive control theory and their applications to electromechanical and power systems, and for outstanding service to the Control Systems Society as Chair of the Society’s Conference Editorial Board

2011

Ted Djaferis

For contributions to robust control theory, parametric robustness and algebraic systems theory; and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society in conference organization, revitalization of the CSS conference-related structures, and society governance (in Board of Governors, Vice President and President roles)

Maria Elena Valcher

For scientific contributions in the areas of multidimensional linear systems, behavior theory, fault detection, delay systems, switched systems, positive systems, and outstanding service to the Control Systems Society through conference and membership related activities

2010

Edwin Chong

Biography

from the University of Adelaide, South Australia, in 1987, graduating top of his class in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering; and the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in 1989 and 1991, respectively, both from Princeton University in the Department of Electrical Engineering, where he held an IBM Graduate Fellowship. His Ph.D. advisor at Princeton was Professor Peter Ramadge. From August 1991 to August 2001, he was on the faculty in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, where he was promoted to Professor in 2001. He is currently a Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and a Professor in the Department of Mathematics at Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. He also serves as Director of CSU's Information Science & Technology Center (ISTeC).

Professor Chong's research interests are primarily in the areas of control, optimization, and modeling, with applications to computer/communication networks, sensor networks, and wireless systems. He received a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in 1995.

Professor Chong is a Fellow of IEEE. He has served as the faculty advisor and branch counselor for the Purdue University IEEE student branch. He received the Outstanding IEEE Branch Counselor and Advisor Award in 1993, and the IEEE Section Recognition Award (IEEE Central Indiana Section) in 1994. He served as Vice President, Financial Activities, IEEE Control Systems Society, 2012--2014, and then as President Elect (2016), President (2017), and Past President (2018).

Professor Chong was an inaugural Senior Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (2009--2016). He was also previously on the editorial boards of Computer Networks, Journal of Control Science and Engineering, and IEEE Expert Now. He was the founding chairman of the IEEE Technical Committee on Discrete Event Systems (under the IEEE Control Systems Society). He has served on the IEEE Control Systems Society Conference Editorial Board, and on program/organizing committees for several conferences, including the IEEE Conference on Decision and Control (CDC), American Control Conference (ACC), IEEE International Symposium on Intelligent Control (ISIC), IEEE Symposium on Computers and Communications (ISCC), IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference (GLOBECOM), and IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

Professor Chong is coauthor of a best-selling book, An Introduction to Optimization, Fourth Edition, Wiley-Interscience, 2013.

For his contributions to research and education in electrical engineering, Professor Chong received the 1998 Frederick Emmons Terman Award from the ASEE, sponsored by HP (see information on the Terman Award and list of awardees). He was named a Purdue University Faculty Scholar in 1999. In 2010, he received the IEEE Control Systems Society Distinguished Member Award.

Affiliation(s)

Colorado State University

United States

To recognize significant technical contributions in the areas of control, optimization, and modeling, and outstanding long-term service to the Society through editorial and conference-related activities

2009

Yutaka Yamamoto

To recognize significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Society

Frank J. Doyle, III

To recognize significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Society

Jay Farrell

To recognize significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Society

2008

Richard Middleton

Biography

Professor Richard H. Middleton was born on 10th December 1961 in Newcastle, Australia. He received his B.Sc. (1983), B.Eng. (Hons-I)(1984) and Ph.D. (1987) from the University of Newcastle, Australia. He has had visiting appointments at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Michigan, and the Hamilton Institute (National University of Ireland Maynooth).

In 1991 he was awarded the Australian Telecommunications and Electronics Research Board Outstanding Young Investigator award. In 1994 he was awarded the Royal Society of New South Wales Edgeworth-David Medal; he was elected to the grade of Fellow of the IEEE starting 1999, and received the M.A. Sargent Award from the Electrical College of Engineers Australia in 2004. He has served as an associate editor, associate editor-at-large and senior editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, the IEEE Transactions on Control System Technology, and Automatica, as Head of Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Newcastle; as a panel member and sub-panel chair for the Australian Research Council; as Vice President - Member Activities and also as Vice President – Conference Activities of the IEEE Control Systems Society; President (2011) of the IEEE Control Systems Society; as Director of the ARC Centre for Complex Dynamic Systems and Control; a Distinguished Lecturer for the IEEE Control Systems Society, and as a research professor at the Hamilton Institute, The National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

He is currently director of the University of Newcastle Priority Research Centre for Complex Dynamic Systems and Control. His research interests include a broad range of Control Systems Theory and Applications, including Systems Biology.

Affiliation(s)

University of Newcastle

Australia

To recognize significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Society

2007

Thomas Parisini

Biography

Thomas Parisini received the Ph.D. degree in Electronic Engineering and Computer Science in 1993 from the University of Genoa. He was with Politecnico di Milano and he currently holds the Chair of Industrial Control and serves as the Head of the Control and Power Research Group at Imperial College London. He is a Deputy Director of the KIOS Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence, University of Cyprus. Since 2001 he is also Danieli Endowed Chair of Automation Engineering with University of Trieste. In 2009-2012 he was Deputy Rector of University of Trieste. In 2018 he received an Honorary Doctorate from University of Aalborg, Denmark. He held a "Scholar-in-Residence" visiting position at Digital Futures-KTH, Stockholm, Sweden. He authored or co-authored a research monograph in the Communication and Control Series, Springer Nature, and over 400 research papers in archival journals, book chapters, and international conference proceedings. He is a co-recipient of the IFAC Best Application Paper Prize of the Journal of Process Control, Elsevier, for the three-year period 2011-2013 and of the 2004 Outstanding Paper Award of the IEEE Trans. on Neural Networks. He is also a recipient of the 2007 IEEE Distinguished Member Award. In 2016, he was awarded as Principal Investigator at Imperial of the H2020 European Union flagship Teaming Project KIOS Research and Innovation Centre of Excellence led by University of Cyprus.

Thomas Parisini has served as the 2021-2022 President of the IEEE Control Systems Society and during 2009-2016 he was the Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Trans. on Control Systems Technology. Since 2017, he is Editor for Control Applications of Automatica and since 2018 he is the Editor in Chief of the European Journal of Control. Among other activities, he was the Program Chair of the 2008 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control and General Co-Chair of the 2013 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control. Prof. Parisini is a Fellow of the IEEE and of the IFAC.

Affiliation(s)

Imperial College London (UK) and University of Trieste (Italy)

To recognize significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Society

Dennis Bernstein

To recognize significant technical contributions and outstanding long-term service to the Society

2006

David Castañón

Christos G. Cassandras

Biography

Christos G. Cassandras is Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Boston University, Head of the Division of Systems Engineering, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and co-founder of the Center for Information and Systems Engineering. He received degrees from Yale University, Stanford University, and Harvard University. In 1982-84 he was with ITP Boston, Inc. and in 1984-1996 he was with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Massachusetts/Amherst. He specializes in the areas of discrete event and hybrid systems, cooperative control, stochastic optimization, and computer simulation, with applications to computer and sensor networks, manufacturing systems, and transportation systems. He has published over 350 refereed papers in these areas, and five books. He has collaborated with The MathWorks, Inc. in the development of the discrete event and hybrid system simulator SimEvents. Dr. Cassandras was Editor-in-Chief of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (1998-2009) and the 2012 President of the IEEE Control Systems Society. He is the recipient of several awards, including the 2011 IEEE Control Systems Technology Award, the Distinguished Member Award of the IEEE Control Systems Society (2006), IFAC’s 1999 Harold Chestnut Prize, 2011 and 2014 prizes for the IBM/IEEE Smarter Planet Challenge competition, the 2014 Engineering Distinguished Scholar Award at Boston University, several honorary professorships, a 1991 Lilly Fellowship and a 2012 Kern Fellowship. He is also a Fellow of the IEEE and a Fellow of the IFAC.

Affiliation(s)

Boston University

United States

2005

Roberto Tempo

Cheryl Schrader

2003

Tariq Samad

Biography

Tariq Samad holds the Honeywell/W.R. Sweatt Chair at the Technological Leadership Institute at the University of Minnesota, where he also serves as the Director of Graduate Studies for the nation’s longest-running M.S. in Management of Technology program and has an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Dr. Samad joined TLI in 2016 after a 30-year career with Honeywell, for the last half of which he was a Corporate Fellow with Honeywell Automation and Control Solutions (ACS). During his career with Honeywell, he contributed to and led automation and control technology developments for applications in electric power systems, clean energy, building management, the process industries, automotive engines, unmanned aircraft, and advanced manufacturing. His research interests relate broadly to automation, intelligence, and autonomy for complex engineering systems. In 2015-2016 he also served as the first Global Innovation Leader for the business.

Dr. Samad was the President of the American Automatic Control Council for 2014-15 and the President of the IEEE Control Systems Society in 2009. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and of IFAC and the recipient of a few awards including the 2008 IEEE CSS Control Systems Technology Award, a Distinguished Member Award from IEEE CSS, and an IEEE Third Millennium Medal. He is the former editor-in-chief of IEEE Press and has recently launched a new book series for Wiley/IEEE Press on “Technology Management, Innovation, and Leadership.” He is the founding chair of the new Industry Committee for IFAC. Dr. Samad holds 20 patents and has authored or edited over 100 publications. He is currently working on the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Systems and Control (co-editor-in-chief, Springer, 2014). He was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Smart Grid Interoperability Panel and he co-led technology deep dives on advanced sensing, controls, and platforms for manufacturing as part of the U.S. Advanced Manufacturing Partnership initiative. Dr. Samad holds a B.S. degree in Engineering and Applied Science from Yale University and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

Affiliation(s)

Honeywell Labs

United States

Gene Franklin

Huibert Kwakernaak

2002

Mark Spong

Website

Biography

Mark W. Spong received the Doctor of Science degree in systems science and mathematics in 1981 from Washington University in St. Louis. He has held faculty positions at Lehigh University, Cornell University, and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Currently, he is a professor of Systems Engineering, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and holder of the Excellence in Education Chair in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. He was Dean of the Jonsson School at UT Dallas from 2008-2017. During his tenure as dean he added four departments of engineering, nine new degree programs, and more than doubled the number of students and faculty. Spong is past president of the IEEE Control Systems Society, and a fellow of both the IEEE and the IFAC. His main research interests are in robotics, mechatronics, and nonlinear control theory. He has authored or coauthored more than 300 technical articles, five books, and holds one patent. His notable awards include the 2018 Bode Lecture Prize from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the 2016 Nyquist Lecture Prize from the ASME, the 2011 Pioneer in Robotics Award from the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society, the first IROS Fumio Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies in 2007, the Senior Scientist Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Distinguished Member Award from the IEEE Control Systems Society, the John R. Ragazzini and O. Hugo Schuck Awards from the American Automatic Control Council, and the IEEE Third Millennium Medal.

Affiliation(s)

University of Texas, Dallas

United States

Kevin Passino

2001

Pradeep Misra

2000

Bozenna Pasik-Duncan

Stephen Yurkovich

1998

Katsuhisa Furuta

Anthony Michel

Karl Johan Åström

Panos Antsaklis

1997

Michael Gevers

Michael Masten

1996

Tzyh-Jong Tarn

Derek Atherton

Hidenori Kimura

J. Douglas Birdwell

1995

Bruce Krogh

Eugene King

Joe Chow

1994

John Baillieul

Radhakishan Baheti

Timothy L. Johnson

H. Vincent Poor

Charles J. Herget

Leonard Shaw

1993

Wilson Rugh

Tamer Bașar

Website

Biography

Tamer Basar is the Fredric G. and Elizabeth H. Nearing Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He received BSEE from Robert College, Istanbul, in 1969, and the M.S., M.Phil, and Ph.D. from Yale University, during 1970-2. After stints at Harvard University and Marmara Research Institute (Gebze, Turkey), he joined UIUC in 1981, where he has been since then with the ECE Department and the Coordinated Science Lab. He has authored or co-authored over 400 publications (including two books and several edited volumes) in the general areas of systems, control, dynamic games, information theory, communication systems and networks, and mathematical economics. He was elected Fellow of IEEE in 1983, and served CSS in various capacities, such as: President (2000), Editor for Techn. Notes & Corresp. for TAC (1992-4), and CDC General Chair (1992) and Program Chair (1989). He is currently the Editor-in-Chief of Automatica, the Editor of the Birkhäuser Series: Systems & Control: Foundations & Applications, Managing Editor of the Annals of the International Society of Dynamic Games, and member of editorial and advisory boards of several international journals in control, wireless networks, and applied mathematics. Among some of his recent recognitions are Tau Beta Pi Drucker Eminent Faculty Award of UIUC (2004), election to the National Academy of Engineering (2000), IEEE Millennium Medal (2000), Axelby Outstanding Paper Award (1995) and Distinguished Member Award (1993) of CSS, and Medal of Science of Turkey (1993). He will also receive the Quazza Medal of IFAC in 2005. His current research interests are in routing, pricing, and congestion control in communication networks; control over wired and wireless networks; mobile computing; and robust and risk-sensitive estimation and control.

Affiliation(s)

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

United States

Daniel Repperger

1992

N. Harris McClamroch

Michael Polis

1991

Alan Laub

1990

William Levine

Raymond DeCarlo

1989

Jane Cullum

George Saridis

H. Austin Spang III

1988

Elizabeth Ducot

Alan Willsky

1987

Yaakov Bar Shalom

Alexander Levis

Herbert Rauch

1986

Peter Dorato

William Perkins

1985

Pierre Belanger

Bernie Friedland

J. Boyd Pearson

Yu Ho

Mohammad Jamshidi

Abraham H. Haddad

1984

Edward Davison

Biography

Edward J. Davison received the A.R.C.T. degree in piano in 1958, the B.A.Sc. in Engineering -Physics and the M.A. in Applied Mathematics from the University of Toronto in 1960, 1961 respectively, and the Ph.D. degree and Sc.D. degree from Cambridge University in 1964 and 1977, respectively.

He was an Assistant Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Toronto in 1964 – 1966, an Assistant Professor in the Dept of Electrical and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley in 1966 – 1967, and an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor and Professor in the ECE Department, University of Toronto, in 1967 – 1968, 1968 – 1974, 1974 – 2001 respectively. He was appointed a University Professor, Dept. of ECE, University of Toronto in 2001 and University Professor Emeritus, in 2004.

He was inducted into the University of Toronto’s Engineering Alumni Hall of Distinction in 2003 and was awarded the Electrical and Computer Engineering Club Teaching Award in 2002. He has been a Designated Consulting Engineer of the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of Ontario since 1979 and was President of Electrical Engineering Consociates Ltd., 1997 – 1999. His research interests are in the area of Control Systems Theory and Automation, with a particular interest in Large Scale Systems, Decentralized Control, Robustness, Controller Design of Large Flexible Space Structures, and Process Control. He has published over 500 research papers, of which one of his papers (1966) has appeared in the Citation Index of Current Contents, and two of his papers have been chosen for best paper awards in the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (1973), (1980).

Affiliation(s)

University of Toronto

Canada

Leonard Silverman

1983

John Lozier

Jose B. Cruz, Jr.

Biography

Jose B. Cruz, Jr. received the B.S. in electrical engineering from the University of the Philippines (UP), April 1953, S.M. in electrical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), June 1956, and the Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois, Urbana–Champaign, October 1959.

He is Professor Emeritus of Engineering and Electrical and Computer Engineering at The Ohio State University (OSU). Previously, he served as Dean of the College of Engineering at OSU from 1992 to 1997, and as a Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California in Irvine (UCI) from 1986 to 1992 and at the University of Illinois from 1965 to 1986. He was a visiting professor at MIT and Harvard University in 1973 and visiting associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley in 1964–1965. He served as instructor at UP 1953–1954 and research assistant at MIT, 1954–1956.

Dr. Cruz, Jr., is the author or coauthor of six books, 23 chapters in research books, and more than 250 articles in research journals and refereed conference proceedings. He was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) in 1980, Chair of the NAE Electronic Engineering Peer Committee 2003, NAE Membership Committee 2003–2007, and he was elected a corresponding member of the National Academy of Science and Technology (NAST, Philippines) in 2003. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), elected 1989; a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), elected in 2004; a Fellow of IFAC, elected in 2007; recipient, Curtis W. McGraw Research Award of ASEE, 1972; recipient, Halliburton Engineering Education Leadership Award, 1981; Distinguished Member, IEEE Control Systems Society, designated in 1983; recipient, IEEE Centennial Medal, 1984; recipient, IEEE Richard M. Emberson Award, 1989; recipient, ASEE Centennial Medal, 1993; and recipient, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, American Automatic Control Council (AACC), 1994.

In addition to membership in ASEE, AAAS, NAE, NAST, he is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), the Philippine American Association for Science and Engineering (PAASE, Founding member 1980, Founding President-Elect 1981, Chairman of the Board 1998–2000), Philippine Engineers and Scientists Organization (PESO), National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), Sigma Xi, Phi Kappa Phi, and Eta Kappa Nu.

He has served on various professional society boards and editorial boards, and he served as an officer of professional societies, including IEEE wherein he was President of the IEEE Control Systems Society in 1979, Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, a member of the IEEE Board of Directors from 1980 to 1985, IEEE Vice President for Technical Activities in 1982 and 1983, and IEEE Vice President for Publication Activities in 1984 and 1985. He served as Chair of the Engineering Section of AAAS in 2004–2005. He served as a member of the Board of Examiners for Professional Engineers for the State of Illinois, 1984–1986

Affiliation(s)

The Ohio State University

United States

Michael K. Sain

Elliot Axelband

L.B. Wadel

James Melsa

Robert Larson

R.B. Wilcox

Michael Athans

Jerry M. Mendel

John Lewis

John Zaborszky

Nathaniel Nichols

Biography

Nathaniel B. Nichols (1914–1997) was an American control engineer who made significant contributions to the field of control theory. He is well known for his book Theory of Servomechanisms, one of the most widely read books in control engineering.

Nichols received a B.S. in chemistry in 1936 from Central Michigan University, and an M.S. in physics from the University of Michigan in 1937.

He was President of the IEEE Control Systems Society in 1968 and the American Automatic Control Council in 1974 and in 1975; and a recipient of the Rufus Oldenburger Medal (1969) and the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award (1980).

Nathaniel B. Nichols was born in Nottawa Township, Mich., USA, Nichols received a B.S. in chemistry in 1936 from Central Michigan University, Mount Pleasant, Mich., and an M.S. in physics from the University of Michigan in 1937.

He was a Servo Group leader at the MIT Radiation Laboratory, Cambridge, Mass., USA, from 1942-46, where he developed automatic radar tracking and fire control computers, and power-driven servomechanisms. He was director of research at Taylor Instrument Company from 1946-50 and later became chief engineer at Taylor. He joined Aerospace Corporation, San Bernadino, Calif., in 1963 as director of the sensing and information division, and retired in 1987.

In 1996 the International Federation of Automatic Control established the Nathaniel B. Nichols Medal to be awarded for distinguished achievements in control engineering. In addition, the Nichols Chart, the Ziegler-Nichols PID tuning algorithms, and the classic MIT Radiation Lab book "Theory of Servomechanisms," co-authored by Nichols, are cornerstones of control practice.

Affiliation(s)

Aerospace Corporation

United States

Louis Kazda

Harold Sorenson

John Salzer

Stephen Kahne

John Ward

George S. Axelby

James Meditch