List of people in systems and control
This is an alphabetical list of people who have made significant contributions in the fields of system analysis and control theory.
Eminent researchers
The eminent researchers include the winners of at least one award of the IEEE Control Systems Award, the Giorgio Quazza Medal, the Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, the Rufus Oldenburger Medal, or higher awards such as the IEEE Medal of Honor and the National Medal of Science. The earlier pioneers such as Nicolas Minorsky, Harry Nyquist, Harold Locke Hazen, Charles Stark Draper, Hendrik Wade Bode, Gordon S. Brown, John F. Coales, Rufus Oldenburger, John R. Ragazzini, Nathaniel B. Nichols, John Zaborszky and Harold Chestnut are not included.| Name | Institution | Nationality | Contributions | Age | Awards |
| Brian D. O. Anderson | Australian National University | Australian | 1941 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award, Giorgio Quazza Medal | |
| Karl Johan Åström | Lund University | Swedish | Author of five books, including Introduction to Stochastic Control Theory and of Adaptive Control. | 1934 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Giorgio Quazza Medal, IEEE Control Systems Award |
| Michael Athans | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Greek-American | 1937 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| John Baillieul | Boston University | American | Works on robotics, mechanical system control and non-holonomic constraints. | 1945 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize |
| B. Ross Barmish | University of Wisconsin–Madison | Canadian-American | Author of New Tools for Robustness of Linear Systems. For fundamental contributions to the analysis of systems with parametric uncertainty and to probabilistic robustness, and for contributions to the design of stock-trading algorithms that are robust to market variability. IEEE fellow and IFAC fellow. | 1949 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize |
| Tamer Başar | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | Turkish-American | Works on dynamic games, control and communication theory, etc. | 1946 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Giorgio Quazza Medal, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, IEEE Control Systems Award |
| Richard E. Bellman | University of Southern California | American | 1920–1984 | John von Neumann Theory Prize, IEEE Medal of Honor, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Dimitri P. Bertsekas | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Greek-American | 1942 | Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, John von Neumann Theory Prize | |
| Stephen P. Boyd | Stanford University | American | Works on engineering applications of convex optimization. Winner of John R. Ragazzini Award in control systems. | 1958 | IEEE Control Systems Award |
| Roger W. Brockett | Harvard University | American | Works on dynamics and control of smart structures. | 1938 | Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, IEEE Control Systems Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Giorgio Quazza Medal |
| Arthur E. Bryson, Jr. | Stanford University | American | 1925 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal, IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Peter E. Caines | McGill University | Canadian | Works in the areas of stochastic, adaptive, large scale and hybrid systems, Mean Field Games. Fellow of the IEEE, SIAM, the Institute of Mathematics and its Applications, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and Royal Society of Canada. Recipient of the Bode Lecture Prize in 2009. | 1945 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize |
| Edward J. Davison | University of Toronto | Canadian | 1928 | Giorgio Quazza Medal, Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize | |
| John C. Doyle | California Institute of Technology | American | Co-author of Robust and Optimal Control, Essentials of Robust Control, and Feedback Control Theory. | 1954 | IEEE Control Systems Award |
| Walter R. Evans | General Electric; Rockwell International; Ford Aeronautic Company | American | 1920–1999 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Bruce Francis | University of Toronto | Canadian | 1947–2018 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Gene F. Franklin | Stanford University | American | 1927–2012 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Elmer G. Gilbert | University of Michigan | American | 1930–2019 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Keith Glover | University of Cambridge | British | 1946 | IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Graham Goodwin | University of Newcastle, Australia | Australian | 1945 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Giorgio Quazza Medal, IEEE Control Systems Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal | |
| J. Karl Hedrick | University of California, Berkeley | American | Total Domination of Etcheverry Hall. Seminal contributions in nonlinear control and estimation. | 1944–2017 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal |
| Yu-Chi "Larry" Ho | Harvard University | Chinese-American | Co-author of Applied Optimal Control, the most cited book on the subject. Since 1983 he has been working on discrete event system theory. | 1934 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal |
| Alberto Isidori | Sapienza University of Rome | Italian | 1942 | Giorgio Quazza Medal, Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Eliahu I. Jury | University of California, Berkeley; University of Miami | Iraqi-American | 1923 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Thomas Kailath | Stanford University | Indian-American | Author of Linear Systems and co-author of Linear Estimation. | 1935 | IEEE Medal of Honor, National Medal of Science |
| Rudolf E. Kalman | University of Florida; ETH Zurich | Hungarian-American | 1930–2016 | IEEE Medal of Honor, Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, Charles Stark Draper Prize, National Medal of Science | |
| Hidenori Kimura | Riken | Japanese | 1941 | Giorgio Quazza Medal | |
| Petar V. Kokotovic | University of California, Santa Barbara | Serbian-American | Works on nonlinear control, both adaptive and robust. He initiated the development of back-stepping. Industry consultant on control of car and jet engines. | 1934 | Giorgio Quazza Medal, Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award |
| Arthur J. Krener | Naval Postgraduate School | American | 1942 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Harold J. Kushner | Brown University | American | 1933 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| George Leitmann | University of California, Berkeley | American | 1925 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Lennart Ljung | Linköping University | Swedish | Author of System identification - Theory for the user and 12 other books. Fellow IEEE. | 1946 | Giorgio Quazza Medal, Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award |
| David Luenberger | Stanford University | American | 1937 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Rufus Oldenburger Medal | |
| David Q. Mayne | Imperial College London | British | Works on differential dynamic programming, adaptive control and model predictive control. | 1930 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Giorgio Quazza Medal |
| Sanjoy K. Mitter | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Indian-American | 1933 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Manfred Morari | ETH Zurich; University of Pennsylvania; United Technologies | Austrian-American | Works on model predictive control, optimization for control system, Youla-Parametrization, and internal model control. Co-author of Predictive Control of Linear and Hybrid Systems and the author of Robust Process Control. | 1951 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal |
| A. Stephen Morse | Yale University | American | 1939 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Richard M. Murray | California Institute of Technology | American | 1963 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Kumpati S. Narendra | Yale University | Indian-American | 1933 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Howard H. Rosenbrock | University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology | British | 1920–2010 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal | |
| Eduardo D. Sontag | Northeastern University | Argentine-American | 1951 | Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Masayoshi Tomizuka | University of California, Berkeley | Japanese | 1946 | Rufus Oldenburger Medal, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| John G. Truxal | State University of New York at Stony Brook | American | 1924–2007 | Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal | |
| John N. Tsitsiklis | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | Greek-American | 1958 | IEEE Control Systems Award, John von Neumann Theory Prize | |
| Pravin Varaiya | University of California, Berkeley | Indian-American | 1940 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Hendrik W. Bode Lecture Prize, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award | |
| Mathukumalli Vidyasagar | University of Texas at Dallas | Indian | Professor of Systems Biology Science at the University of Texas at Dallas. Author of Nonlinear systems analysis. | 1947 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal |
| Jan C. Willems | University of Groningen | Belgian | Author of The analysis of feedback systems. Worked on LQ control, dissipative systems and linear matrix inequalities. Co-author of Introduction to mathematical system theory – a behavioral approach, where the behavioral approach is a representation free way to discuss system dynamics. | 1939–2013 | IEEE Control Systems Award |
| W. Murray Wonham | University of Toronto | Canadian | 1934 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Giorgio Quazza Medal | |
| Dante C. Youla | Polytechnic Institute of New York University | American | 1925 | IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| Lotfi A. Zadeh | University of California, Berkeley | Iranian-Azerbaijani-American | 1921–2017 | Eringen Medal, Rufus Oldenburger Medal, IEEE Medal of Honor, Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award, Golden Goose Award | |
| Moshe Zakai | Technion | Israeli | 1926–2015 | IEEE Control Systems Award | |
| George D. Zames | McGill University | Polish-Canadian | 1934–1997 | IEEE Control Systems Award, Rufus Oldenburger Medal |
Eminent researchers of USSR (including [Russian SFSR], [Ukrainian SSR], [Byelorussian SSR], etc. from 1922 to 1991)
Other active researchers
Historical figures in systems and control
These people have made outstanding historical contributions to systems and control.| Given Names | Last Name | Institution | Year | Contributions |
| George Biddell | Airy | 1840 | Early investigations into the instability phenomenon in Watt governors. | |
| William Ross | Ashby | University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign | Made many early contributions to cybernetics and complex systems, such as the concept of variety. | |
| Robert H. | Park | 1929 | Published last century's 2nd-ranked power engineering paper for developing Park Transform of AC machines with time-invariant-coefficient LDEs, widely used for vector control in AC drive & other power electronics applications. | |
| Richard | Bellman | 1953 | Developed dynamic programming | |
| Harold Stephen | Black | Worcester Polytechnic Institute | 1927 | Invented the negative-feedback amplifier |
| Hendrik | Bode | 1945 | Published Network Analysis and Feedback Amplifier Design, invented the Bode plot and introduced the Bode integral formula. | |
| Nikolay | Bogolyubov | Together with Nikolay Krylov developed the describing function method as an approximate procedure for analyzing nonlinear control problems. | ||
| Leonhard | Euler | Developed the Laplace transform, the main tool for analyzing LTI systems. His Euler–Lagrange equation is the basis for model predictive control. | ||
| Rudolf | Kalman | 1960 | Pioneered the state-space approach to systems and control. Introduced the notions of controllability and observability. Developed the Kalman filter for linear estimation. | |
| Walter R. | Evans | Developed the root locus method for feedback design. | ||
| Gene F. | Franklin | His 1958 text "Sampled-Data Control Systems" introduced digital control to a discipline which had previously operated almost exclusively in the analog domain. | ||
| Joseph | Fourier | Introduced the Fourier series, allowing analysis in the frequency domain. | ||
| Ernst A. | Guillemin | Developed techniques for analysis and synthesis of networks of RLC components. | ||
| Harold | Hazen | 1934 | Author of Theory of Servomechanisms. | |
| Faina | Kirillova | National Academy of Sciences of Belarus | Developed a constructive theory of extremal problems, proved the quasi-maximum principle for discrete systems, and developed algorithms for adaptive optimization. | |
| Andrey | Kolmogorov | Co-developer of the Wiener–Kolmogorov filter. Formulated the Kolmogorov forward and backward equations in the theory of stochastic processes. | ||
| Nikolay | Krylov | together with Nikolay Bogolyubov developed the describing function method as an approximate procedure for analyzing nonlinear control problems. | ||
| Irmgard | Flügge-Lotz | Stanford University | Developed discontinuous automatic control, which laid the foundation for automatic on-off aircraft control in jets. | |
| Alexander | Lyapunov | 1892 | His paper Sur le problème général de la stabilité du mouvement marks the beginning of stability theory. | |
| James Clerk | Maxwell | 1868 | Paper "On governors" investigated the stability of governors in a systematic way and discovered the necessary conditions for stability. | |
| Nicolas | Minorsky | 1922 | Ship designer, was the first to provide an analysis of the three term controller and to suggest its use for ship steering. | |
| Nathaniel B. | Nichols | 1947 | Developed the Nichols plot. Published Theory of Servomechanisms with H. M. James and R. S. Phillips. | |
| Harry | Nyquist | 1927 | Developed the Nyquist stability criterion for feedback systems and co-developed Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem. | |
| Lev | Pontryagin | Main author of Pontryagin's minimum principle for optimal control problems. | ||
| Vasile | Popov | Developed the Kalman–Yakubovich–Popov lemma and the Popov criterion for stability. | ||
| John R. | Ragazzini | 1954 | His book Sampled-data control systems introduced digital control and the z-transform. | |
| Edward John | Routh | Early theorist, developed Routh–Hurwitz theorem and Routh–Hurwitz stability criterion. | ||
| Claude E. | Shannon | Developed information theory and pioneered switching theory. | ||
| John | Tukey | Developed the Fast Fourier transform algorithm, which made frequency analysis easy to implement. | ||
| Norbert | Wiener | Co-developer of the Wiener-Kolmogorov filter. Coined the term Cybernetics. Studied the stochastic process known as the Wiener process. | ||
| Charles H. | Wilts | 1953 | Caltech professor, author of New electric analog computers and their application to aircraft design problemsand Principles of Feedback Control. Rock climber. | |
| W. Murray | Wonham | 1974 | Linear Multivariable Control. Supervisory control theory. Internal Model Principle. Pole Assignment Theorem. | |
| Vladimir Andreevich | Yakubovich | Saint Petersburg State University | 1996 | Pioneered the usage of linear matrix inequalities in control theory. Considered as the father of the field. |
| George | Zames | McGill University | Developed robust control theory, including the small-gain theorem and H-infinity control. |