History of the Institute

The Council of People’s Commissars decided in 1939 that the Commission on Remote Control and Automation that had existed since 1934 had to be expanded into an Institute of Automation and Remote Control in the framework of the USSR Academy of Sciences’ Division of Technical Sciences and one of the first Air Force pilots and by that time a famous researcher in aviation power engineering, Academician Viktor Sergeyevich Kulebakin was appointed director of the Institute.

At the time of its setting up the Institute had a total of 22 personnel, in particular B.N. Petrov who would become a member of the Academy and its vice-president, M.A. Gavrilov who would become a correspondent member of the Academy, N.N. Shumilovsky who would become a member of the Kirghizian Academy of Sciences, Professors V.A. Lossiyevsky, G.V. Shchipanov, and others. Soon the Institute admitted Academician N.N. Luzin, an outstanding mathematician who, like Academician A.A. Andronov later trained an entire school of control theoreticians.

Pre-war years saw significant successes scored in description of control systems by differential equations and discussion of “compensation conditions” underwhich, as their author G.V. Shchipanov argued, the control system would not respond to perturbations. That discussion spilled over from scientific publications to central periodicals controlled by the ruling Communist Party. Shchipanov’s conditions were actually forerunners of what later became a theory of invariance advanced by V.S. Kulebakin, N.N. Luzin and B.N. Petrov. G.V. Shchipanov died in 1953 and his scientific vindication did not occur until 1960 when a commission that included Academicians A.A. Dorodnitsyn, A.Yu. Ishlinsky and B.N. Petrov  confirmed the scientific value of his discovery (formally what was termed then “G.V. Shchipanov’s compensation  conditions” were recognized as a discovery in 1966 with a priority since April 1939).

During World War II the Institute worked for the war and the army while some of its future personnel like M.A. Aizerman, P.P. Parkhomenko, Ya.Z. Tsypkin and others fought the enemy arms in hand. The Institute’s research in fighting non-contact torpedoes and mines carried out under the guidance of future Academy Corresponding Member B.S. Sotskov and automation of quality control in making cartridges under the guidance of future Academician and the Institute’s Director V.A. Trapeznikov and B.N. Petrov were especially important.

Following the war Academician A.A. Andronov joined the Institute and launched a famous workshop attended by nearly every future scientific leader, in particular M.A. Aizerman, A.A. Fel’dbaum, A.Ya. Lerner, M.V. Meyerov, A.V. Mikhailov, V.V. Petrov, V.V. Solodovnikov, Ya.Z. Tsypkin and numerous others. In 1969 the Academy of Sciences Presidium introduced an A.A. Andronov Prize; A.G. Butkovsky, future Academy Corresponding Member V.V. Petrov and Andronov’s follower Dr. Sc. (Engg), Professor M.V. Meyerov were among its first winners.

The following were the highlights of the Institute’s activities in 1940s and 1950s:

  • Development of the Boolean algebra  tools for description, analysis and design of switching systems (M.A. Gavrilov);
  • Development of a general theory of linear control systems (V.S. Kulebakin, B.N. Petrov, M.A. Aizerman, M.V. Meyerov, V.V. Solodovnikov, Ya.Z. Tsypkin and others);
  • Development of a theory of nonlinear control systems, in particular a method of point-wise transformations, theory of absolute stability and theory of switching systems (М.А. Aizerman, V.V. Petrov, G.M. Ulanov, А.А. Fel’dbaum, Ya.Z. Tsypkin);
  • Construction of a first Soviet family of analog computers (B.Ya. Kogan, V.A. Trapeznikov and others.);
  • Development of general methods of studying digital control systems (Ya.Z. Tsykin);
  • Development of fundamentals of an optimal control theory (А.А. Fel’dbaum, A. Ya. Lerner and at a later stage А.G. Butkovsky, V.F. Krotov);
  • Development of a dual control theory (А.А. Fel’dbaum);
  • Development of essentially new sensitive elements, sensors and instruments (B.S. Sotskov, D.I. Ageikin, М.А. Rozenblat, Ye.К. Кrug and others);
  • Start of research in control of liquid propellant missile engines (B.N. Petrov).

 

Vadim Alexandrovich Trapeznikov was appointed Institute director in 1951 and it was largely due to his efforts that by early 1960s conditions were in place for an upsurge of new ideas, creation of essentially new theories and development of control systems of an unprecedented scale and sophistication that were created in 1970s and 1980s and continue even now.

Research in aerospace control gained an unprecedented momentum (B.N. Petrov, Yu.P. Portnov-Sokolov, V.Yu. Rutkovky, G.M. Ulanov, L.G. Palevich, V.A. Viktorov and numerous others). In 1980 the Academy launched a B.N. Petrov Golden Medal and in 1993 a B.N. Petrov Prize to researchers for outstanding achievements in control theory and systems and for experiments in space exploration. It was V.Yu. Rutkovsky of the Institute of Control Sciences who obtained the first ever B.N. Petrov Golden Medal, in 1983 and in 2004 the Institute’s Yu.P. Portnov-Sokolov, A.Ya. Andriyenko and V.P. Ivanov won a B.N. Petrov Prize in 2004 and V.V. Kulba and B.V. Pavlov in 2007.

A.A. Fel’dbaum and A.Ya. Lerner were the first to obtain striking results in optimal control theory. Young L.I. Rozonoer followed in their steps. Simultaneously A.G. Butkovsky developed a theory of control for systems with distributed parameters and extended to it Pontryagin’s maximum principle and demonstrated the broadest application possibilities of that theory in solving numerous national economy problems.

Late in “fifties” and early “sixties saw the advent of fundamentals of a theory of variable structure systems (S.V. Yemel’yanov, now an Academician). At a later stage S.V. Yemel’yanov and his followers V.I. Utkin, A.M. Shubladze, S.K. Korovin and others extended that theory into a powerful tool for analysis and design of feedback control systems.

Also in those years B.N. Petrov, V.Yu. Rutkovsky, I.N. Krutova, S.D. Zemlyakov, V.V. Pavlov and others started working on a theory of adaptive systems with a model. At a later stage the findings of the theory were extended into a theory of adaptive coordinate parametric control that is being explored even today. This theory was integrated into control systems for numerous most important kinds of aerospace vehicles.

Future Academician Ya.Z. Tsypkin worked out a general theory of adaptive systems that became a natural extension of A.A. Fel’dbaum’s dual control theory and at some later stage gave rise to a theory of robust systems whose fundamental were laid by Ya.Z. Tsypkin and is now extended in the laboratory named after Tsypkin and led now by B.T. Polyak.

In early 1960s A.A. Fel’dbaum and M.A. Aizerman took the lead in intensive research in theory of pattern recognition, automatic classification, learning systems and processing of data organized in a complex way. At that time fundamental research was underway in various laboratories: Ya.Z. Tsypkin and G.K. Kelmans (Lab. No. 7), M.A. Aizerman, E.M. Braverman, L.I. Rozonoer and B.M. Litvakov (Lab. No. 25), V.N. Vapnik and A.Ya. Chervonenkis (Lab. No. 38), A.A. Dorofeyuk, I.B. Muchnik and Ye.V. Bauman (Lab. No. 55)

Academician V.S. Pugachyov and his followers worked out a general system of control for random systems. N.S. Rajbman, a follower of V.S. Pugachyov, spared no efforts to have ways to build a mathematical model from experimental statistical data, identification theory, become an efficient tool for developers of control systems for various processes (V.M. Chadeyev, V.A. Lototsky, A.S. Mandel’, and S.A. Vlasov).

V.A. Trapeznikov-led activities in Project 705, creation of the world’s first comprehensively automated submarine, greatly contributed to having the Institute’s personnel develop a taste in tackling complicated problems in control of most important industrial plants. At a later stage the findings of these activities proved useful in developing and improving control systems for nuclear-powered icebreakers and have significantly changed the ideas of seamen of requirements to reliability of the system’s parts.

A Spare Parts project was designed assure supply of spares, in particular dual-purpose parts, to various industries. The project was run by a group headed by A.A. Dorofeyuk in 1971 – 75. Trapeznikov made a decisive contribution to the success of the project. As a first deputy chairman of the State Science and Technology Committee he succeeded in attracting the attention of Prime Minister A.N. Kosygin and  his First Deputy D.S. Polyansky, top officials of several Union Republics and large regions of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic to that project. The Union Government and the Estonian  Government carried out in 1973 – 75 an experiment in checking the efficiency of the Institute’s R&D and proposals on that topic in which the overall savings  were found to exceed eight billion rubles in 1975 prices.

Projects in development of computer-aided data processing and control systems such as Metal for control of metal product supplies, Morflot (merchant fleet), and Exchange for exchanges of apartments and rooms were launched in 1960s and are underway now. Outstanding researchers such as O.I. Aven, V.L. Epshtein, V.V. Kul’ba, A.G. Mamikonov, A.D. Tsvirkun and A.F. Volkov were involved in planning those projects.

An air ticket reservation system developed late in ‘sixties and early in ‘seventies has played a major part in development of mass service systems. The USSR Council of Ministers appointed V.A. Zhozhikashvili general construction of the Sirena system and V.A. Kucheruk greatly contributed to integrating the automation methods developed in the Institute’s Lab. No. 17.

Mid-1980s saw the start of the Institute’s research in managing safety of complicated systems (A.Ya. Andriyenko, V.N. Burkov, V.V. Kulba,V.G. Lebedev, Yu.S. Legovich, and V.G. Volik). This research continues now. Most important results have to do with information safety and safety in emergencies. Since early 1990s the Institute holds annual international conferences on safety control of complicated systems. The Institute has scored impressive successes in fundamentals of reliability theory (I.Ye. Dekabrun, S.N. Domanitsky, B.P. Petrukhin, B.S. Sotskov and B.G. Volik) and technical diagnostics (M.F. Karavai, P.P. Parkhomenko, Ye.S. Sogomonian and others).

A variety of new hardware tools and automation systems have been developed in the Institute over decades. Institute Director Iveri Varlamovich Prangishvili who died on February 26, 2006 was deeply involved in that research. B.S. Sotskov’s idea moved forward in 1950s to standardize process automation hardware by building the latter of modules became the core of the State-run Instrument Systems GSP-1 of the ‘sixties and ‘seventies and FSP-2 of the ‘eighties and ‘nineties.

Great advances were made in development of a theory and new principles in construction of sensors and instruments (D.I. Ageikin, V.Yu. Kneller, Yu.R. Agamalov and others), magnetic and semi-conducting elements (M.A. Rozenblat, N.P. Vasilyeva, and others), automatic analysis hardware (system BARS) and relay units (M.A. Gavrilov,, P.P. Parkhomenko and others) and pneumatic elements (M.A. Aizerman, A.A. Tal’, A.A. Tagayevskaya, T.K. Berends and T.K. Yefremova). Some of these research projects have extended to advanced magnetic elements with the use of nano-technologies (S.I. Kasatkin), micro- and nano-electronic elements and control units (R.R. Babaian), fluid technology hardware (A.M. Kasimov) and microwave technology hardware (B.V. Lunkin). New generations of analog-and-digital hybrid computing systems, GVS-100 and a two-level GVS Rusalka were developed in 1970s (B.Ya. Kogan).

Back in 1960s a concept of uniform microelectronic logical and computing arrays was put forward by a group headed by I.V. Prangishvili.  That concept materialized in multi-processor computing systems of the PS series, PS-2000 and PS-3000. In terms of their throughput PS systems were comparable with most powerful Soviet computing systems of associated classes and had the best  throughput to price ratios.

When it was entrusted with development of computer-aided control systems for future nuclear power stations, the Institute developed a system of parallel-structured programmable automation hardware. M.A. Gavrilov’s followers A.A. Ambartsumian and others authored the concept of the hardware. M.A. Gavrilov’s other followers such as O.P. Kuznetsov, A.K. Grigorian and others developed a programming language for logical units; that project led to development of numerically controlled machine tools that the industry manufactured in a series in ‘eighties.
The Institute’s research of properties of semi-conducting structures with specific volt-amperе characteristics (V.D. Zotov) resulted in development of essentially new semi-conducting multi-functional sensors, or Z-sensors. At present Russia is the sole owner of Z-sensor manufacture.

Starting with 1970s, studies of the role played by man in the control loop and in the analysis and improvement of administrative and socio-economic systems became a very important line of research in the Institute. Pioneering research carried out by D.I. Ageikin and at a later stage extended by A.D. Tsvirkun and V.K. Akinfiyev (Lab. No. 33), F.F. Pashchenko (Lab. No. 40), A.M. Cherkashin, V.A. Glotov, V.B. Gusev and V.V. Pavel’yev (Lab. No. 43), A.S. Mandel’ (Lab. No. 44), V.G. Lebedev and E.A. Trakhtengerts (Lab. No. 46), A.L. Chernyavsky and A.A. Dorofeyuk (Lab. No. 55), V.N. Burkov, D.A. Novikov, A.V. Shchepkin and A.K. Yenaleyev (Lab. No. 57).

Research in related fields, theory of choice, was carried out by M.A. Aizerman, A.V. Malishevsky and F.T. Aleskerov (Lab. No. 25) and ways to support managerial decisions, started in ‘seventies by O.I. Larichev (a future Academician) and V.M. Ozernoi, is continued today by A.S. Mandel’ (Lab. No. 44), A.A. Dorofeyuk and A.L. Chernyavsky (Lab. No. 55), V.N. Burkov, A.V.Shchepkin and A.Yu. Zalozhnev (Lab. No. 57).

Significant results have been obtained in control in biological and medical problems. This research started in laboratories headed by M.A. Aizerman, N.V. Pozin, A.M. Petrovsky and A.A. Fel’dbaum in 1960s. At present six laboratories do this research full-time. A.A. Desova of Lab. No. 15, a group headed by Ye.A. Andreyeva in Lab. No. 25, V.N. Novosel’tsev, A.i. Yashin and A.I. Mikhal’sky in Lab. No 38, and S.M. Borodkin, A.A. Dorofeyuk and I. B. Muchnik in Lab. No. 55 obtained challenging results in this field over the years.

In late 2006 Academician Stanislav Nikolayevich Vassilyev was elected director of Institute. The Institute is developing by expanding and moving into new depths of basis research in control theory and applications. Cooperation with other Russian Academy of Sciences institutions goes from strength to strength. Joint projects are underway with the Ukrainian and Belarussian Academies of Sciences.  The Institute’s thirty five researchers presented their papers to the 17th IFAC Congress held in Seoul, Korea, in 2008. The Institute selected nine scientific youth schools run by leading scientists for financing. In cooperation with the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of System Dynamics and Control Theory it set up a scientific school of stability and control in heterogeneous and certain other models of dynamic and intellectual systems.

A multi-processor computing complex in the Institute is used for high-speed computation while computer stands are used for modeling moving and other control systems and for training of operators. The Institute has signed large contracts with Russian and foreign companies.

The Institute carries out applied activities under contracts with:

  • The Russian Defense Ministry;
  • The Russian Education and Science Ministry;
  • The Russian Emergency Situation Ministry;
  • The Russia Interior Ministry;
  • The Russian Federal Security Service;
  • The Russian Federation Social Insurance Fund;
  • The Russian National Central Office of the Interpol;
  • The Gazprom company;
  • The Russian Railroads company;
  • Regional and municipal administrations (Moscow’s Science and Industrial Policy Department and others);
  • Yu.Ye. Sedakov Instrumentation Research Institute;
  • M.V. Khrunichev Space Research and Exploration Center;
  • The Electromechanical Research Institute company;
  • The Kvant Research Institute federal unitary company;
  • The Russian Interior Ministry’s STiS Research and Manufacturing company;
  • The Kursk Pribor (Instrument) company of the Aviaavtomatika (Aviation Automation) Design Board;
  • Research Institute on Operation of Nuclear Power Stations;
  • The Izhevsk Electromechanical Plant Kupol

and others/