Petar V. Kokotovic

Biography

Dr. Petar V. Kokotovic’s impact as an educator is evident in the success of his students. The list of those he has mentored, many of whom are IEEE Fellows, reads like a worldwide “Who’s Who” of control engineers. His lively and dynamic style inspires innovation while instilling the value of using engineering to solve real problems.

Dr. Kokotovic is the founder and director of the University of California-Santa Barbara’s Center for Control Engineering and Computation. This center has become a role model of cross disciplinary research and education. One of the Center’s achievements is a fully integrated cross-disciplinary graduate program for electrical and computer, mechanical and environmental, and chemical engineering fields. While at the University of Illinois at Urbana, he pioneered singular perturbation techniques, used today in power systems and adaptive controllers.

At the University of California his group developed constructive nonlinear control methods and applied them, with colleagues from MIT, Caltech and United Technologies, to new jet engine designs. As a long-term industrial consultant, he has contributed to computer controls at Ford and to power system stability at General Electric. With his 30 Ph.D. students and 20 postdoctoral researchers, Dr. Kokotovic has co-authored numerous papers and 10 books.

He is an IEEE Fellow and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering. His honors include the IEEE Control Systems Field Award, the IF AC Quazza Medal, the D.C. Drucker Eminent Faculty Award and two Outstanding IEEE Transactions paper awards.

Further Reading

Petar Kokotovic Oral History