Petros A. Ioannou is a

Cypriot American Cypriot Americans () are Americans of full or partial Cyprus, Cypriot ancestry. Cypriot Americans, alongside English language, English, speak Cypriot Greek, Cypriot Turkish, Cypriot Arabic, or Armenian language, Armenian. The majority of Cypriot ...

Electrical Engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

who made important contributions in Robust Adaptive Control, Vehicle and Traffic Flow Control, and Intelligent Transportation Systems.

Early life and education

Petros A. Ioannou was born in the village of Tripimeni in

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. After graduation from the Technical School of Nicosia and completion of his compulsory

military service Military service is service by an individual or group in an army or other militia, air forces, and naval forces, whether as a chosen job (volunteer military, volunteer) or as a result of an involuntary draft (conscription). Few nations, such ...

he moved to

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

in 1973 to attend

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

. He graduated with

First-class honours The British undergraduate degree classification system is a grading structure used for undergraduate degrees or bachelor's degrees and integrated master's degrees in the United Kingdom. The system has been applied, sometimes with significant var ...

from

with a B.S. in

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

in 1978. He earned a

M.S. A Master of Science (; abbreviated MS, M.S., MSc, M.Sc., SM, S.M., ScM or Sc.M.) is a master's degree. In contrast to the Master of Arts degree, the Master of Science degree is typically granted for studies in sciences, engineering and medicine ...

and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

from the

University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United States. Established in 1867, it is the f ...

in the area of Robust Adaptive Control under the supervision of doctoral advisor

Petar V. Kokotovic Petar V. Kokotovic ( sr-Cyrl-Latn, Петар В. Кокотовић, separator=" / ", Petar V. Kokotović; born 1934) is professor emeritus in the College of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA. He has made contributi ...

Career

Ioannou became an

assistant professor Assistant professor is an academic rank just below the rank of an associate professor used in universities or colleges, mainly in the United States, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. Overview This position is generally taken after earning a doct ...

at the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...

in 1982 and was subsequently promoted to associate and full professor. He is currently a

full professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a 'person who professes'. Professors ...

in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the

where he holds courtesy appointments in the Departments of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering and Industrial and Systems Engineering. He is the holder of the A.V. Balakrishnan Endowed Chair and in 2024 was given the title of University Professor which is one of the highest recognitions and honors at

. He is the founder and director of the Center for Advanced Transportation Technologies and co-founder and associate director for research of the Metropolitan Transportation Center METRANS as well as the director of the Master Program on

Financial Engineering Financial engineering is a multidisciplinary field involving financial theory, methods of engineering, tools of mathematics and the practice of programming. It has also been defined as the application of technical methods, especially from mathe ...

. In 2024 he became the Director of the Center for Responsible AI in Decision Making in Finance (CREDIF). On February 9, 2022, he was elected as a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) for his contributions to robust adaptive control and intelligent transportation systems for improved traffic flow and driver safety. In 2022, Ioannou was also elected to the

Academia Europaea The Academia Europaea is a pan-European Academy of humanities, letters, law, and sciences. The Academia was founded in 1988 as a functioning Europe-wide Academy that encompasses all fields of scholarly inquiry. It acts as co-ordinator of Europe ...

and to the

National Academy of Inventors The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) is a US non-profit organization dedicated to encouraging inventors in academia, following the model of the National Academies of the United States. It was founded at the University of South Florida in 201 ...

and in 2023 was elected Foreign Fellow of the European Academy of Science.

Research

Ioannou’s multidisciplinary research focusses on solving problems related to automatic control with applications in the areas of vehicles, intelligent transportation systems, aircraft, computer disks servo control, noise and vibration cancellation and other applications. He is an expert in Robust Adaptive Control and he is known for the use of σ-modification and switching σ-modification in establishing robustness in

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 consump ...

. He was one of the pioneers in making

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 consump ...

practical by proposing robustness modifications that prevent instabilities and guarantee performance and robustness. He has been working on advanced vehicle concepts that involved

drive by wire Drive by wire or DbW in the automotive industry is the technology that uses electronics or electro-mechanical systems in place of mechanical linkages to control driving functions. The concept is similar to fly-by-wire in the aviation industry. D ...

steer by wire Steer-by-wire, in the context of the automotive industry, is a technology or system that allows steering some or all of a vehicle's wheels without a steering column that turns the direction of those wheels mechanically. It is different from electr ...

and later on

cruise control Cruise control (also known as speed control, cruise command, autocruise, or tempomat) is a system that automatically controls the speed of an automobile. The system is a servomechanism that takes over the car's throttle to maintain a steady sp ...

and intelligent cruise control systems in collaboration with major automotive companies in the US. Intelligent cruise control systems also known as

Adaptive Cruise Control Adaptive cruise control (ACC) is a type of advanced driver-assistance system for road vehicles that automatically adjusts the vehicle speed to maintain a safe distance from vehicles ahead. As of 2019, it is also called by 20 unique names that ...

(ACC) systems allow automatic vehicle following with collision avoidance capabilities for safety and driver comfort in addition to positive environmental impact. He was the first to prove that ACC systems can be designed to guarantee stable vehicle following known as string stability without using vehicle to vehicle communication . Ioannou’s research also involves the design of

control systems A control system manages, commands, directs, or regulates the behavior of other devices or systems using control loops. It can range from a single home heating controller using a thermostat controlling a domestic boiler to large industrial co ...

for

vibration control In earthquake engineering, vibration control is a set of technical means aimed to mitigate seismic impacts in building and non-building structures. All seismic vibration control devices may be classified as ''passive'', ''active'' or ''hybri ...

with applications to laser pointing devices, mechanical systems, noise cancellation devices and disk drive

servo control Servo control is a method of controlling many types of servo (radio control), RC/hobbyist servos by sending the servo a PWM (pulse-width modulation) signal, a series of repeating pulses of variable width where either the width of the pulse (most ...

and camera image stabilization. His research in the area of transportation involves

traffic flow In transportation engineering, traffic flow is the study of interactions between travellers (including pedestrians, cyclists, drivers, and their vehicles) and infrastructure (including highways, signage, and traffic control devices), with the ai ...

modeling and control as well as freight optimum routing and port automation. The development of a

traffic simulation Traffic simulation or the simulation of transportation systems is the computer simulation, mathematical modeling of transportation systems (e.g., freeway junctions, arterial routes, roundabouts, downtown grid systems, etc.) through the application o ...

of the road network that feeds into

Los Angeles International Airport Los Angeles International Airport is the primary international airport serving Los Angeles and its Greater Los Angeles, surrounding metropolitan area, in the U.S. state of California. LAX is located in the Westchester, Los Angeles, Westcheste ...

allows the evaluation of different technologies and concepts that influence the traffic around the terminals.

Awards

* 1984 – George Axelby Best Paper Award * 1985 –

NSF NSF may stand for: Political organizations *National Socialist Front, a Swedish National Socialist party *NS-Frauenschaft, the women's wing of the former German Nazi party * National Students Federation, a leftist Pakistani students' political g ...

Presidential Young Investigator Award The Presidential Young Investigator Award (PYI) was awarded by the National Science Foundation of the United States Federal Government. The program operated from 1984 to 1991, and was replaced by the NSF Young Investigator (NYI) Awards and Preside ...

* 1992 – Fellow of the

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office ...

* 2006 – Fellow of the

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

* 2008 – IEEE ITS Outstanding Application Award * 2009 –

Institution of Engineering and Technology The Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) is a multidisciplinary professional engineering institution. The IET was formed in 2006 from two separate institutions: the Institution of Electrical Engineers (IEE), dating back to 1871,Engin ...

(IET) Heaviside Medal for Achievement in Control * 2016 –

IEEE Transportation Technologies Award The IEEE Transportation Technologies Award is a technical field award given for advances in technologies within the fields of interest to the IEEE as applied in transportation systems. This IEEE-level award, was created in 2011 by the board of ...

* 2016 – Recipient of the

Viterbi School of Engineering The USC Viterbi School of Engineering (formerly the USC School of Engineering) is the engineering school of the University of Southern California. It was renamed following a $52 million donation by Andrew J. Viterbi, co-founder of Qualcomm. ...

Senior Research Award,

* 2019 – Recipient of

User-Inspired Research Award,

* 2024 – Fellow of Asia-Pacific Artificial Intelligence Association * 2024 – Recipient of

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 edu ...

Rufus Oldenburger Medal The Rufus Oldenburger Medal is an award given by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers recognizing significant contributions and outstanding achievements in the field of automatic control. It was established in 1968 in the honor of Rufus O ...

* 2024 – Recipient of

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

ITS ITS, its or it's may refer to: Language * It's, an English contraction of ''it is'' or ''it has'' * Its (pronoun), the possessive form of the pronoun it * Itsekiri language (ISO 639 language code its), a language found in Nigeria and the Niger De ...

Society Lifetime Achievement Award * 2024 – Recipient of University Professor Award, highest recognition given by the

Books

Publications (selected)

#M. Polycarpou and P. Ioannou, “A Robust Adaptive Nonlinear Control Design”

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

, Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 423–427, March 1996. #H. Xu, M. Mirmirani, and P. A. Ioannou, "Adaptive Sliding Mode Control Design for a Hypersonic Flight Vehicle," AIAA Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, Vol 27, pp 829–838, September–October 2004. #P. A. Ioannou and K. S. Tsakalis, "A Robust Direct Adaptive Controller,"

IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office i ...

, Vol. 31, No. 11, November 1986. #P. A. Ioannou and P. V. Kokotovic, "Instability Analysis and Improvement of Robustness of Adaptive Systems,"

, Vol. 20, No. 5, September 1984, pp. 583–594 #C. I. Liu, H. Jula, and P.A. Ioannou, “Design, simulation, and evaluation of automated container terminals,” IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol. 3, no. 1, March 2002 pp. 12–27. #K. S. Tsakalis and P. A. Ioannou, "Adaptive Control of Linear Time-Varying Plants: A New Model Reference Controller Structure,"

, Vol. 34, No. 10, pp. 1038–1047, October 1989. #H. Jula, A. Chassiakos, and P. Ioannou, “Port dynamic empty container reuse,” Transportation Research – Part E, Vol. 42, No. 1, pp. 43–60, Jan. 2006 #Kahveci N. and P. Ioannou, ‘Adaptive steering control for uncertain ship dynamics and stability analysis’,

, vol. 49, no. 3, pp. 685–697, March 2013 #Vadim Butakov and Petros Ioannou "Driver/Vehicle Response Diagnostic System for the Vehicle Following Case," IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vol.15, no.5, Oct. 2014, pp. 1947–1957 #Y. Zhao and P. Ioannou, “Positive Train Control with Dynamic Headway Based on an Active Communication System", IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, vol.16, no.6, pp. 3095–3103, Dec. 2015. #S. Jafari, P. A. Ioannou, and L. Rudd, "Adaptive Feedback Suppression of Unknown Periodic Components of Acoustic Noises with Time-Varying Characteristics," Journal of Vibration and Control, pp. 1–13, 2015. #Yihang Zhang and Petros A. Ioannou, "Stability analysis and variable speed limit control of a traffic flow model," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, 118, 31-65, 2018.

References

External links

Home Page of Petros A. Ioannou
at

Center For Advanced Transportation Technologies CATT
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ioannou, Petros American electrical engineers American people of Cypriot descent Alumni of University College London Grainger College of Engineering alumni University of Southern California faculty Fellows of the IEEE American systems scientists