aaGuido O. Guardabassi: Curriculum vitae et studiorum

Guido Guardabassi was born on February 12, 1940, in Piacenza, Italy. Since 1975 he is full professor of Automatic Control at the Politecnico di Milano, where he also served as Chairman of the Electronic Engineering Faculty Council (two years), as Supervisor of the Doctorate Program in Electronic, Information, and Systems Engineering (two years), as elected member of the Senate (two years), Director of the Department of Electronic and Information Engineering (three years) and Chairman (since the launch of the new degree in 2001 till 2009) of the Faculty active in the Automation and Control Engineering program In October 2011, he has been awarded the title of Professor Emeritus at the Politecnico di Milano.

His research activity is documented by more than 50 papers in international journals and a significantly larger number of conference papers, chapters in scientific monographs, or articles in professional encyclopedias. The topics dealt with, fall in four main areas: 1) discrete complex systems (robust regulation of finite automata by output feedback, decomposition and asymptotic analysis of Markov chains, composite problem analysis as a unified framework for a variety of large-scale systems issues), 2) linear multivariable control (structural uncontrollability of the sensitivity coefficients, robust asymptotic decentralized regulation under uncertainty, and optimal tuning of the regulator parameters), 3) optimal periodic control (P-test for periodic regimes better than the optimal constant one), and 4) direct data-based control systems design, i.e. nicely-nonlinear modelling and control (identification of models tangent to a nonlinear plant at the nominal equilibrium and properly linearizable by output feedback) and virtual input methods, by which the controller design is recast as a standard identification problem. On the professional side, he has been dealing with a number of applications involving modelling, simulation, and control of power systems (damping of electro-mechanical oscillations by advanced voltage control), chemical (nonlinear dynamics of high-purity distillation columns) or thermal plants (high-precision temperature control in a radiators test chamber).

For short periods (1¸4 months), he worked and lectured in foreign Universities or Research Institutions: Stanford (1969), Belgrade Center for Advanced Studies (1970), Harvard (1978), Berkeley (1981). He gave short series of lectures on either Optimal Periodic Control, or Detection and Damping of Low-Frequency Oscillations in Power Systems, or even Nicely Nonlinear Systems Identification and Control, in Ghent (1974), Berkeley (1978), Chang-Sha (1985) and Chengdu (1993).

He served for two years as Chairman of the Standing Committee for International Affairs of the IEEE Control Systems Society and is a Fellow of IEEE. Within IFAC, he partecipated in the activity of the Systems Engineering Committee (SECOM) as member (1976), Vice-Chairman (1978-81) and Chairman (1981-84). In 1980, he was one of the founders and the first Chairman of the SECOM W.G. on Computer-Aided System Analysis and Design. He served on the IPC of many IFAC events as member, Vice-Chairman or Chairman. He also chaired the Young Author Prize Committee for the 11th World Congress (Tallinn, 1990). From 1984 through 1990, he was a member of the Council; and, from 1990 through 1993, Chairman of the Publications Committee. He is a Fellow of IFAC.aaaaaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaaa

He is or has been on the editorial board of three national (Alta Frequenza, La Meccanica Italiana, Ricerche di Automatica) and five international (Automatica, Information and Decision Technologies, Optimal Control Applications and Methods, Studies in Informatics and Control, Systems Science) scientific journals.

Selected publications