Karl Johan Åström (born August 5, 1934) is a Swedish control theorist, who has made contributions to the fields of

control theory Control theory is a field of mathematics that deals with the control system, control of dynamical systems in engineered processes and machines. The objective is to develop a model or algorithm governing the application of system inputs to drive ...

and

control engineering Control engineering or control systems engineering is an engineering discipline that deals with control systems, applying control theory to design equipment and systems with desired behaviors in control environments. The discipline of controls o ...

, computer control and

adaptive control Adaptive control is the control method used by a controller which must adapt to a controlled system with parameters which vary, or are initially uncertain. For example, as an aircraft flies, its mass will slowly decrease as a result of fuel consumpt ...

. In 1965, he described a general framework of Markov decision processes with incomplete information, what ultimately led to the notion of a Partially observable Markov decision process. In 1995, Åström was elected as a member into the

National Academy of Engineering The National Academy of Engineering (NAE) is an American nonprofit, non-governmental organization. The National Academy of Engineering is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of ...

for contributions to identification, stochastic, and adaptive control and their incorporation in control engineering practice.

Biography

Åström was born in

Östersund Östersund (; sma, Staare) is an urban area (city) in Jämtland in the middle of Sweden. It is the seat of Östersund Municipality and the capital of Jämtland County. Östersund is located at the shores of Sweden's fifth-largest lake, Storsjön, ...

, Sweden, and received his M.Sc. in Engineering Physics (1957) and PhD in Automatic Control and Mathematics (1960) from the

Royal Institute of Technology The KTH Royal Institute of Technology ( sv, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, lit=Royal Institute of Technology), abbreviated KTH, is a public research university in Stockholm, Sweden. KTH conducts research and education in engineering and technolog ...

(KTH) in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

, where he also taught from 1955 to 1960 while working on

inertial guidance An inertial navigation system (INS) is a navigation device that uses motion sensors ( accelerometers), rotation sensors ( gyroscopes) and a computer to continuously calculate by dead reckoning the position, the orientation, and the velocity ...

for the Swedish National Defence Research Institute. In 1961 Åström joined the IBM Nordic Laboratory to work on computerized process control, with tours at

IBM Research IBM Research is the research and development division for IBM, an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, with operations in over 170 countries. IBM Research is the largest industrial research or ...

Yorktown Heights, New York Yorktown Heights is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Yorktown in Westchester County, New York, United States. The population was 1,781 at the 2010 census. History Yorktown Heights is in the town of Yorktown, New York, in northern ...

(1962) and

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

(1963). After his return he led efforts in the computer control of paper manufacturing machinery. In 1965, Åström was named chair of the newly founded Department of Automatic Control at Lund University, Sweden. From 1965 to 1999 he was chair of the Department of Automatic Control at

Lund University , motto = Ad utrumque , mottoeng = Prepared for both , established = , type = Public research university , budget = SEK 9 billion University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

. Åström is a Fellow of the

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is a 501(c)(3) professional association for electronic engineering and electrical engineering (and associated disciplines) with its corporate office in New York City and its operati ...

, member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special responsibility for prom ...

, vice president of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences or ''Kungliga Ingenjörsvetenskapsakademien'' (IVA), founded on 24 October 1919 by King Gustaf V, is one of the royal academies in Sweden. The academy is an independent organisation, which prom ...

(IVA), and a foreign associate of the US

. He was awarded the

ASME The American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) is an American professional association that, in its own words, "promotes the art, science, and practice of multidisciplinary engineering and allied sciences around the globe" via "continuing ...

Rufus Oldenburger medal (1985) and the

International Federation of Automatic Control The International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC), founded in September 1957, is a multinational federation of 49 national member organizations (NMO), each one representing the engineering and scientific societies concerned with automatic ...

Quazza Medal (1987). In 1987 he was also awarded the degree Docteur Honoris Causa from l'

Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble The Grenoble Institute of Technology (Grenoble INP) (''Institut polytechnique de Grenoble'', ''Groupe Grenoble INP'' and before INPG) is a French technological university system consisting of eight engineering and management schools. Grenoble INP ...

. He received in 1989 the IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award, in 1990 the

IEEE Control Systems Science and Engineering Award The IEEE Control Systems Award is a technical field award given to an individual by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) "for outstanding contributions to control systems engineering, science or technology". It is an IEE ...

, and in 1993 the

IEEE Medal of Honor The IEEE Medal of Honor is the highest recognition of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). It has been awarded since 1917, when its first recipient was Major Edwin H. Armstrong. It is given for an exceptional contributi ...

for his "fundamental contributions to theory and applications of adaptive control technology".

Publications

;Books: * 1970. ''Introduction to Stochastic Control''. Academic Press, 1970; Dover, 2006. * 1989. ''Adaptive Control''. With B Wittenmark. Addison-Wesley, 1989. * 1996. ''Computer-controlled Systems, Theory and Design''. With B Wittenmark. Prentice Hall, 1996; Dover, 2011. (IFAC Textbook award for first edition, 1993) * 2005. ''Advanced PID Control''. With T Hägglund. ISA, 2005. * 2008. ''Feedback Systems: An Introduction for Scientists and Engineers''. With R. Murray. Princeton University Press, 2008. (IFAC Textbook award, 2011) ;Papers: * KJ Åström, B Wittenmark. "On self-tuning regulators," Automatica, vol. 9, pp. 185–199, 1973.

References

External links

Karl Johan Åström faculty page

IEEE History Center biography

Åström_and_Murray:_Feedback_Systems_(2008)_[textbook]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Astrom,_Karl_Johan 1934_births.html" ;"title="extbook]">Åström and Murray: Feedback Systems (2008) [textbook]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Astrom, Karl Johan 1934 births">extbook]">Åström and Murray: Feedback Systems (2008) [textbook]
{{DEFAULTSORT:Astrom, Karl Johan 1934 births Control theorists Swedish electrical engineers IEEE Medal of Honor recipients Foreign associates of the National Academy of Engineering Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences Academic staff of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology Academic staff of Lund University Living people

Biography

Publications

See also

References

External links