2018/11/22 by Alex Poznyak · 1 citation
Engineering · Psychology · #Advanced Data Processing Techniques #Algorithm #Computer graphics (images) #Computer science #Electric Power Systems and Control #Friendship #Psychology #Sketch #Social psychology
paper · pdf · doi:10.1002/rnc.4417
openalex publication_date 2018/11/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Each person has two lives: the second comes when he/she realizes that life is one. Having worked in the “first life” in the same institute (Institute of Control Science of Russian Academy of Sciences, below IPU in Russian abbreviation) for more than 20 years, we practically did not have any contact. Due to the ten-year-age difference, we were placed in different scientific schools and, naturally, the circles of close friendships and friends were also different. When the “second life” began, the author of these lines was over 40, and Vadim exceeded 50 years. This period can be described as a turning point, and even as a tragic one: the country, in which the “first life” passed, was disappearing on our eyes, and the great scientific schools we had honor to belong to were disintegrated. Almost all scientists, who wanted to preserve their scientific level and not change the fidelity to serve to science, considering it as the main source of human knowledge, had to seek the opportunity to continue their scientific activities in other countries. Professor V. Utkin helped the author of this note as well as most of the colleges from his “team” to get this chance. The majority of them were his PhD students and now are concentrated in Mexico (A. Lukianov, Y. Orlov, and L. Fridman) (Figures 1-3) and in USA (S. Drakunov). This second life provided an opportunity not only to strengthen existing scientific contacts but also made human contacts much closer, which turned into a trusting friendship. It continues to this day, bringing the joy of open communication on various issues including scientific. Now, a short biographical information about the scientific life of V. Utkin and its main stages is presented. Vadim Ivanovich Utkin was born on October 30, 1937, in Moscow (Figure 4). After finishing high school in 1954, he became a student of Department of Electromechanics of Moscow Power Institute and graduated in 1960 as an engineer in the area of electric machines, transformers, and electromechanical relays (Figure 5). However, this area did not become the main streamline of his future professional activity due to two important events. The first one is about his math teacher in high school, I. Tanatar. The teacher demonstrated that esthetics is in many chapters of such well-formalized science as mathematics. The teacher had a surprising gift to see beauty in the conventional chapters of the textbooks. He appealed to nontrivial ways of thinking. His style of teaching was an excellent illustration to the words of great Einstein, “Education is what remains in your brain after you forget what you learnt at university.” Stimulated by the math lessons and personal contacts with the teacher, Vadim participated successfully in Moscow Mathematical Olympiads. The second milestone event happened when he was a student and took a very short (10 lectures) control course by docent E. Lvov. The course was obligatory for the students of his group. The first impression—how natural and beautiful combinations of mathematics and application problems! The decision “I should learn the control theory, I should work with experts in the area” was made immediately after the course. Many years later, he was honored to make a presentation at Department of Mathematics of Moscow University. The chairman introduced him: “He is an engineer, but he likes mathematics.” (The word “unfortunately” was not pronounced after “engineer,” but it could be read on his face.) He had to postpone the dream about control science and prepared his graduation work on the sensor based on paramagnetic resonance. Quite fortunately, his advisor D. Libenson worked at the Institute of Control Sciences (IPU), and after graduation in 1960, Vadim started to work as an engineer in the department headed by academician B. Petrov—Chairman of USA-USSR space program. It was a great luck for him to work for dozens of years at IPU (now by name of academician V.A. Trapeznikov) (Figure 6), the oldest Institute in control area, founded in Moscow in 1939. It was a wonderful intellectual island in the country, better to say a wonderful kingdom with absolute democracy. Of course, “Kingdom with absolute democracy” sounds strange. However, it was the case because everybody could become a king or queen should he or she approach the scientific truth closer than the others. The scientific truth was the only God there (Figure 7). His first duty was to simulate time optimal processes on an analog computer (probably none of them exists now) and then to develop kilometers of oscillograms in the room with a red lamp for A. Pavlov, who was finishing his PhD thesis. The first paper of Vadim was published in “Automation and Remote Control” in 1962 on time optimal control without ideal derivatives. Then, he joined the group of S. Emelyanov developing concept (VSS) and defended PhD thesis in 1964. In 1964, he attended an international conference for the first time and made a presentation at IFAC Symposium on Sensitivity held in Dubrovnik, Yugoslavia (Figure 8). The most important operation mode in VSS is the so-called sliding mode. The scope of sliding mode control(SMC) research includes wide range of mathematical, design, and application problems. All of them constituted his D.Sci. thesis defended in 1971 and then published as a book in Russian (1974) and in English (1978). In contrast to the first publications on VSS with scalar control, the multidimensional sliding modes with state trajectories in the intersection of several discontinuity surfaces were introduced and studied by Vadim. The new mathematical methods were developed based on the concept “equivalent control” widely used in practically all modern publications on SMC. By the view of Vadim, the help of discussions of mathematical aspects with M. Aizerman would hardly be overestimated. The 20 year collaboration between research teams of IPU and ENERGOINVEST (Sarajevo) resulted in significant progress in further development of SMC theory and applications. Several colleagues of Yugoslavia selected SMC for their PhD theses, B. Drazenovic defended her thesis in Moscow. Director of Institute “IRCA,” B. Matic, offered to utilize SMC for electric machines. Vadim was co-PI of the project of two nonexisting now countries USSR and Yugoslavia. The multidimensional sliding mode control was first applied to control of induction motors by D. Izosimov and A. Sabanovich in the framework of this project. Integration of the Soviet science into the world science in the iron curtain times met some obstacles. Although the first results on the sliding mode control were published by the mid-1970s, they were practically unknown to the colleagues of West countries. Thanks to the invitation of P. Kokotovic of University of Illinois (Figure 9), Vadim had a chance to work with him and his colleagues during sabbatical from 1975 to 1976. They helped his orientation in the new environment, introduced him to the control community, and gave a chance to tell about the research state in Moscow. The today's international multibranch sliding mode control tree was seeded at that time. Vadim was the first Chairman of IEEE Technical Committee on VSS and SMC. Now, international workshops are held by the committee every two years. The previous 15 were held in four continents; the next one is scheduled in 2020 in Brazil. All his professional life, Vadim did what he liked to do and every morning went to his office in a good mood, anticipating the pleasure to stay in the abovementioned kingdom. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the continuation seemed problematic because of the natural financial difficulties of the transition to the market economics. Numerous invitations of a visiting professor position let him extend the time of “free search” in USA, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan, and England. At that time, SMC studies started to appear in scientific programs of research centers and universities of many countries. Chapters on SMC are in modern text books on nonlinear control systems. Courses on SMC are offered at several universities. Plenary presentations on SMC were included into the programs of IFAC Congress and ACC (Figures 10 and 11). Vadim is with the Ohio State University since 1994. Course “sliding mode control in electromechanical systems” is offered to graduate students since then. Two editions (in 1999 and 2009) of the book with the same title were published; it serves as a textbook. Interesting fact of his biography: After graduation in 1960, he did not find interesting the main elements of his profession—electric machines, relays. However, 20 years later, all types of electric machines and converters (contactless version of electromechanical relays) proved to be the main area of SMC applications. Now, papers about SMC applications can be found in IEEE journals and conferences on power electronics. The research activity of Vadim has been maintained at a high level. His papers coauthored by his students, colleagues of OSU and of Mexico, Germany, Spain, Italy, Japan, and Hong Kong have been published and reported at conferences, after he joined OSU (Figures 12 and 13). He is an Honorary Doctor of the University of Sarajevo (Yugoslavia, 1978) and of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Spain, 2011) and an IEEE Fellow. In 1972, he was awarded the Lenin Prize (the highest scientific award in the former USSR), Oldenburger Medal of ASME (2003), and Humboldt Award (Germany, 2005), and was elected as a Foreign Member of the Academy Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina (2008) and the Mexican Academy of Sciences (2014). Professor Utkin was the IPC Chairman of 1990 IFAC Congress in Tallinn, Estonia; now, he is the Associate Editor of International Journal of Control. Currently, Professor Utkin teaches courses in control principles for undergraduates (principles of automatic control) and courses in optimal control, state space methods for dynamic systems analysis and control, and sliding mode control in electromechanical systems at the graduate level. Dear Vadim Ivanovich, all of us, your friends and colleagues, believe that we will enjoy collaboration and personal contacts with you for many many years.