Vyacheslav Petrov, in full Vyacheslav Vyacheslavovich Petrov, was born in Il’inskoe (Gorky Region) in a family of clerks. In 1930, he graduated from a secondary school in Moscow, finished Krasin’s electrical engineering courses, and entered Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MPEI).

After graduating from MPEI (1935), Petrov worked at several plants in the aircraft industry. In 1937, he was sent to Leningrad to the Zhdanov Shipbuilding Yard and participated in developing automatic systems for a destroyer (1937—1941).

In 1943, Petrov started his postgraduate studies at the Institute of Automation and Remote Control (IARC), the USSR Academy of Sciences. His scientific supervisors were distinguished scholars, Academicians A.A. Andronov and N.N. Luzin. Having finished his postgraduate studies, Petrov worked at IARC up to 1957. From 1957 to 1960, he headed a department at the Central Research Institute of Complex Automation (TsNIIKA). After defending his doctoral dissertation (1959), Petrov began teaching at Bauman Moscow Higher Technical School.

In 1960, Petrov was invited to Moscow Aviation Institute (MAI) to organize the Department of Aviation Instruments and Measuring and Computing Complexes. He headed the Department for 28 years and trained over 2500 engineers.

From 1989 until the last days of his life, Petrov was Advisor to the MAI Rector’s Office.

A student and follower of Academician A.A. Andronov, Petrov is considered a founder of the theory of nonlinear servomechanisms. He proposed a topological stability criterion for a large class of relay control systems based on a simple calculation of parameters of a “degenerate limiting cycle.” The criterion does not require studying all motions in the phase space; like the Hurwitz criterion for linear systems, it determines stability conditions for an equilibrium of relay systems. Together with A.A. Gordeev, Petrov developed qualitative and quantitative investigation methods on the multi-sheet phase plane for relay systems with an unlimited number of nonlinear elements and any order of differential equations of the linear part.

Having generalized the well-known theorem of Academician V.A. Kotelnikov, Petrov eliminated the seeming ill-posedness of the problem statement and initiated the development of an informational control theory for dynamic objects. The corresponding results of many years of research were published in Doklady of the USSR Academy of Sciences, VINITI collections, and monographs as well as were presented at All-Union and international congresses, symposia, and conferences. Petrov and his students established the relationship between Shannon’s quantity of information and Wiener’s filtering error. A significant result of the informational control theory was a qualitative relationship between Shannon’s information entropy and energy dissipation based on the conservation law. It was established by Petrov jointly with V.M. Ageev.

An associate of Academician B.N. Petrov, V. Petrov contributed greatly to aircraft control theory. His research works played a key role in developing aviation, rocket, and space technology. He led and directly participated in developing measuring and computing instrumentation complexes for different military and industrial objects.

Petrov authored over 200 scientific publications, including 6 monographs and 4 textbooks. They are widely known and internationally recognized.

For several years, Petrov was Chairman of the Expert Commission of the USSR Higher Attestation Commission. In the 1960s—1970s, he was a regular participant in IFAC congresses and symposia. For about 6 years, Petrov was Member of the IFAC/IFIP Education Committee (including 3 years as its Chairman). Also, he was Chairman of the Education Committee of the USSR National Committee for Automatic Control.

Petrov’s contribution to science and technology was marked by his election as Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (1972). He was awarded the USSR State Prize, the Andronov Prize of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and the MAI 25th Anniversary Prize. Petrov was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor (twice) and 9 medals, including the medal “25 Years of Manned Space Flight” of the USSR Federation of Cosmonautics. Also, he was noted with honorary diplomas by the USSR Academy of Sciences, the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, and IFAC President.

Petrov’s main books are as follows:

1. Predel’nye teoremy dlya summ nezavisimykh sluchainykh velichin (Limit Theorems for the Sums of Independent Random Numbers), Moscow: Nauka, 1987. — 320 p.;
2. Nelineinye servo (Nonlinear Servomechanisms), Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1979. — 471 p. (coauthor A.A. Gordeev);
3. Tochnost’ izmeritel’nykh ustroistv (The Precision of Measuring Devices), Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1976. — 312 p. (coauthor D.A. Braslavskii);
4. Tekhnicheskaya kibernetika. Kniga 2 (Engineering Cybernetics. Book 2), Moscow: VINITI, 1975. — 266 p. (coauthors Z.B. Golembo, G.V. Venikov, O.F. Radutskii, V.M. Ageev, A.A. Gordeev, A.V. Zaporozhets, V.M. Kostyukov, S.V. Emelyanov, V.B. Ezerov, and I.M. Shenbrot);
5. Tekhnicheskaya kibernetika. Kniga 1 (Engineering Cybernetics. Book 1), Moscow: VINITI, 1975. — 395 p. (coauthors B.N. Petrov, V.M. Ageev, A.V. Zaporozhets, A.S. Uskov, I.N. Polyakov, G.M. Ulanov, S.V. Ul’yanov, and E.M. Khazen);
6. Pribornye servomekhanizmy letatel’nykh apparatov (Aircraft Instrumentation Servomechanisms), Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1973. — 224 p. (coauthor B.A. Marchukov);
7. Teoriya avtomaticheskogo regulirovaniya (Automatic Regulation Theory), Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1969. — 606 p. (coauthors A.M. Batkov, Yu.I. Borodin, A.M. Letov, and A.B. Ioannesian);
8. Sovremennye metody proektirovaniya sistem avtomaticheskogo upravleniya (Modern Design Methods for Automatic Control Systems), Moscow: Mashinostroenie, 1967. — 703 p. (coauthors A.M. Batkov, I.A. Boguslavskii, I.E. Kazakov, I.N. Kovalenko, A.A. Krasovskii, L.T. Kuzin, A.I. Kukhtenko, V.L. Lenskii, A.A. Pavlov, B.N. Petrov, E.P. Popov, G.S. Pospelov, V.V. Semenov, V.V. Solodovnikov, V.I. Tikhonov, Yu.V. Topcheev, Ya.A. Khetagurov, A.S. Shatalov, and B.A. Shchukin);
9. Stabilizatory napryazheniya i toka (Voltage and Current Stabilizers), Moscow: Svyaz’radioizdat, 1952. — 120 p. (coauthor B.A. Piontkovskii).

Many books are presented in the Institute’s database:
https://www.ipu.ru/d7ipu/books_library_grid?combine=Петров+В.В.

The list of Petrov’s journal papers can be found at Math-Net.Ru:

	1997
1.	N. V. Pavlova, V. V. Petrov, E. I. Kholyavko, Automated Setting of Flight Assignments by the Methods of Artificial Intelligence, Avtomat. i Telemekh., 1997, 6,  158—169    ; Autom. Remote Control, 58:6 (1997), 1017—1025.
	1996
2.	V. V. Petrov, N. V. Pavlova, Integration of Methods in Hybrid Expert Systems, Dokl. Akad. Nauk, 350:4 (1996),  465—466.
	1995
3.	V. M. Ageev, N. V. Pavlova, V. V. Petrov, On Regularization of Algorithms of Information Processing in Control Problems, Avtomat. i Telemekh., 1995, 9,  73—81      ; Autom. Remote Control, 56:9 (1995), 1261—1267.
	1993
4.	V. V. Petrov, V. M. Ageev, Selection of a Regularization Parameter in the Solution of Ill-Posed Problems in Information Processing, Dokl. Akad. Nauk, 333:6 (1993),  714—716.
	1990
5.	V. V. Petrov, V. M. Ageev, On the Choice of Regularizing Functionals, and Optimal Time Discretization, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 313:1 (1990),  18—20      ; Dokl. Math., 35:7 (1990), 608—609.
	1987
6.	V. V. Petrov, V. M. Ageev, Informational Aspects of the Regularization of Ill-Posed Problems, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 296:2 (1987),  284—286      ; Dokl. Math., 36:2 (1988), 265—267.
	1986
7.	V. V. Petrov, V. I. Sobolev, Entropy Approach to the Estimation of Automatic Control System Performance, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 287:4 (1986),  799—801.
	1984
8.	V. V. Petrov, V. G. Khatiashvili, Formation of a Target Function and Evaluation of the Activity of Experts in an Iterative Process of Data Collection and Processing, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 278:3 (1984),  568—570.
9.	V. V. Petrov, V. M. Ageev, N. V. Pavlova, Entropy Model for Optimization of Complex Informational-Measuring Systems, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 275:4 (1984),  821—823.
	1982
10.	V. V. Petrov, V. M. Ageev, N. V. Pavlova, Principle of the Optimal Complexing of Information-Measuring Systems During the Computer-Aided Design, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 264:3 (1982),  564—566.
	1979
11.	V. V. Petrov, V. A. Tsikalov, Reliability of Output Signals of Multidimensional Information Apparatus, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 244:6 (1979),  1332—1333.
	1976
12.	V. V. Petrov, V. B. Svechinskii, A Study of a Modified Method of Least Squares in Nonstationary Conditions, Avtomat. i Telemekh., 1976, 11,  80—90    ; Autom. Remote Control, 37:11 (1976), 1695—1704.
13.	V. V. Petrov, A. A. Gordeev, Investigation of High-Order Nonlinear Systems on a Multisheet Phase Plane, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 228:1 (1976),  59—61.
	1975
14.	V. V. Petrov, A. V. Zaporozhets, A Principle for Evolving Systems, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 224:4 (1975),  779—782.
	1974
15.	V. V. Petrov, A. V. Zaporozhets, I. N. Polyakov, Information Synthesis of Optimal Systems, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 215:2 (1974),  293—296.
	1973
16.	V. V. Petrov, A. S. Uskov, Transmission Capacity of Information Systems with Mutually Correlated Signals and Noise, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 210:2 (1973),  288—290.
	1971
17.	V. V. Petrov, V. M. Ageev, Entropy and Auto-oscillations in Nonlinear Systems, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 199:6 (1971),  1260—1261.
	1970
18.	V. V. Petrov, A. S. Uskov, Informational Aspects of the Regularization Problem, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 195:4 (1970),  780—782.
19.	V. V. Petrov, A. S. Uskov, Capacities of Information Systems with Feedback and Internal Noise, Dokl. Akad. Nauk SSSR, 194:5 (1970),  1029—1031.

https://www.mathnet.ru/php/person.phtml?&personid=70568&option_lang=eng

The list of his papers in Avtomatika i Telemekhanika can be found at:
https://www.mathnet.ru/php/search.phtml?jrnid=at&tjrnid=at&wshow=search&option_lang=eng

For their English versions, see the microfilm collection of Automation and Remote Control:
https://archive.org/details/pub_automation-and-remote-control

Also, his publications, including inventions, are available at:
https://www.elibrary.ru/author_items.asp?authorid=4461&pubrole=100&show_refs=1&show_option=0

Articles about V.V. Petrov

In addition, see the Wikipedia devoted to Petrov:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Петров,_Вячеслав_Вячеславович