IEEE History Center: Karl Åström Abstract

Karl Åström Interview (September 6, 1994)

Dr. Karl Åström was born in Sweden in 1934. He attended graduate school at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, where he received his masters degree in engineering physics in 1957 and his Ph.D. in mathematics and control in 1960. His research was on guidance control for military purposes, and he worked as a consultant for the Swedish defense department. Åström worked with accelerometers, gyroscopes, and the uses of feedback in navigation control. In 1961 he joined IBM Sweden, where he focused on using digital computers for industrial process control. For a year and a half he studied IBM control groups in the United States, and worked on stochastic control problems at the San Jose laboratories. Upon returning to Sweden, Åström worked on process control computers for use in a paper mill. In 1965 he joined Lund University's engineering faculty and created a curriculum for process control. He wrote a seminal textbook, Control Theory, which was published in 1968. Together with fellow faculty members and graduate students, Åström has made many practical applications of control theory, including work with artificial intelligence, ship steering, water treatment plants, and heating and air conditioning systems. He is the recipient of the Callender Silver Medal from the Institute of Measurement and Control in London, and is a Fellow of the IEEE.

The interview spans Åström's career, focusing on his work with IBM and as a professor specializing in control theory. Åström discusses his education in Sweden, his work with the Swedish defense ministry, and his subsequent work with IBM and the Lund University. He describes his research in industrial process control, particularly his work with digital computers and stochastic control problems. Åström recalls his work with process controls for paper manufacturing, naval guidance systems, and other practical applications. He evaluates colleagues in the field, the development and impact of control theory, the relative merits of digital and analog computers, IEEE contributions to the control field, and new uses for control theory and feedback. He lists many peers, publications, and control theory centers which have decisively shaped the control field.

(Page numbers refer to pages in the printed transcript held at the IEEE History Center. On-line, they should be used as relative measures)

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