Iveri Prangishvili, in full Iveri Varlamovich Prangishvili, was Director of the Institute of Control Sciences, the USSR (then Russian) Academy of Sciences from 1987 to 2006. Honored Man of Science and Technology of the RSFSR, Dr. Sci. (Eng.), Prof., and Academician of the Georgian Academy of Sciences and several international and foreign academies.
Prangishvili was born on June 6, 1930, in the village of Didi Jikhaishi, the Samtredia district (Georgia). In 1949, he graduated from secondary school no. 12 of Tbilisi; in 1952, from Georgian Polytechnic Institute with a degree in power engineering.
From 1952 to 1955, Prangishvili worked at Gruzenergo and Gidroenergoproekt.
In 1955, he entered postgraduate studies at the Institute of Automation and Remote Control (IARC), the USSR Academy of Sciences (nowadays, the Institute of Control Sciences (ICS)). In 1959, Prangishvili defended his candidate’s dissertation in engineering; in 1968, his doctoral dissertation in engineering. In 1969, he became Professor.
Since 1955, his life was connected with IARC (then ICS). Having defended his candidate’s dissertation, Prangishvili worked as Leading Engineer, Junior Researcher, and Senior Researcher. In 1964, Prangishvili was elected Head of an Institute’s Laboratory. In 1970, he was appointed Deputy Director for Science; in 1987, Prangishvili was elected Director of the ICS (the USSR Academy of Sciences and the USSR Ministry of Instrument-Making).
In 1979, Prangishvili was elected Full Member of the Georgian Academy of Sciences. In 1980, he was awarded Honored Man of Science and Technology of the RSFSR.
Prangishvili was a well-known expert in control processes and systems as well as computer and information science. He published over 400 papers, including 15 monographs. Prangishvili also authored a scientific discovery (the “background principle”) and over 40 inventions.
Prangishvili’s research was mainly focused on systems theory and systems analysis (3 monographs), control of large-scale systems and high-risk objects (4 monographs), and multiprocessor computing and control systems and complex systems (2 monographs).
In the 1970s—1980s, Prangishvili developed theoretical foundations and design principles of high-performance, multiprocessor, problem-oriented computing and control systems with parallel and reconfigurable structures. Based on those results, he supervised the creation of PS-2000, PS-2001, and PS-3000 computing systems. They were widely used in geophysics, hydroacoustics, space data processing, and other sectors of the national economy, including the development of special equipment. The theoretical research in that area was summarized by Prangishvili in several monographs.
In the second half of the 1980s and the early 1990s, Prangishvili developed the theory and design principles of fault-tolerant control systems with a distributed architecture for complex and potentially hazardous objects (nuclear power plants and similar facilities). The corresponding results were presented by him in 2 books.
In recent years, Prangishvili guided and directly participated in the development of a new principle of detecting and recognizing moving objects (the background principle). This principle is based on the systemic law of detecting various moving objects, discovered by the authors. When a moving object enters a coverage area, the intensity of the background radiation signal decreases irrespective of the object’s emissivity or reflectivity. Thus, the object is detected by the coherent receipt of background radiation. This principle is successfully applied in detection and ranging, security, psychology, medicine, biology, and other fields.
As a rule, the systemic regularities investigated in Prangishvili’s monographs are restrictive and preventive. They indicate unreachable phenomena and events that should not be strived for. Therefore, the systemic laws discovered by Prangishvili directly influence all control activities. In particular, they were used to analyze the basic processes of emergency development in complex weakly structured systems (in engineering, medicine, and agriculture).
In 1987, Prangishvili was appointed the USSR General Designer for a class of automated process control systems——instrumentation and control (I&C) systems for nuclear power plants (NPPs). Under his supervision, projects of a new generation of I&C systems for NPPs were developed, particularly an I&C system for NPP in Bashkiria. While working on those projects, Prangishvili was included in the Board of the USSR Ministry of Electrical Engineering.
From 1992, Prangishvili was Member of the Bureau of the Section of Machine-Building, Mechanical Engineering, and Control Processes RAS, the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS). From 2002 to 2006, he was Member of the Bureau of the Section of Energy, Machine-Building, Mechanical Engineering, and Control Processes RAS. From 1995 to 2006, he headed the Scientific Council of the Section of Controlled Processes and Automation Theory RAS. He was Vice-Chairman of the National Committee on Automatic Control, Editor-in-Chief of two peer-reviewed journals (Sensors and Systems and Control Sciences), and a member of the editorial boards of other journals. Under Prangishvili’s scientific supervision, over 30 doctoral and candidate’s dissertations were defended. Also, he was an active tutor in universities.
For his achievements in scientific and industrial activities, Prangishvili was awarded two Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, the Order of Friendship, the Order of Honor, and many medals.
Prangishvili was Full Member of several foreign academies, Vice-President of the International Academy of Engineering, and Vice-President of the Georgian Academy of Sciences.
Prangishvili’s main monographs are as follows:
- Sistemnyi podkhod i povyshenie effektivnosti upravleniya (System Approach and Improving the Efficiency of Control), Moscow: Nauka, 2005. — 422 p.;
- Sistemnye zakonomernosti i sistemnaya optimizatsiya (Systemic Regularities and System Optimization), Moscow: Sinteg, 2004. — 208 p. (coauthors V.N. Burkov, I.A. Gorgidze, G.S. Dzhavakhadze, and R.A. Khurodze);
- Entropiinye i drugie sistemnye zakonomernosti: Voprosy upravleniya slozhnymi sistemami (Entropic and Other Systemic Regularities: Issues of Complex Systems Control), Moscow: Nauka, 2003. — 428 p.;
- Sistemnye zakony i zakonomernosti v elektrodinamike, prirode i obshchestve (Systemic Laws and Regularities in Electrodynamics, Nature and Society), Moscow: Nauka, 2001. — 525 p. (coauthors F.F. Pashchenko and B.P. Busygin);
- Sistemnyi podkhod i obshchesistemnye zakonomernosti (System Approach and General Systemic Regularities), Moscow: Sinteg, 2000. — 528 p.;
- Poisk podkhodov k resheniyu problem (Search for Approaches to Problem Solving), Moscow: Sinteg, 1999. — 284 p. (coauthors N.A. Abramova, V.F. Spiridonov, P.V. Kovriga, and V.P. Razbegin);
- Osnovy postroeniya ASU slozhnymi tekhnologicheskimi protsessami (Foundations of Building Automated Control Systems for Complex Industrial Processes), Moscow: Energoatomizdat, 1994. — 304 p. (coauthor A.A. Ambartsumyan);
- Nauchnye osnovy postroeniya ASU TP slozhnykh energeticheskikh sistem (Scientific Foundations of Building Instrumentation and Control Systems for Complex Power Systems), Moscow: Nauka, 1992. — 232 p. (coauthor A.A. Ambartsumyan);
- Mikroprotsessory i lokal’nye seti mikro-EVM v raspredelennykh sistemakh upravleniya (Microprocessors and Local Networks of Microcomputers in Distributed Control Systems), Moscow: Energoatomizdat, 1985. — 272 p.
- Lokal’nye mikroprotsessornye vychislitel’nye seti (Local Microprocessor Computer Networks), Moscow: Nauka, 1984. — 177 p. (coauthors V.S. Podlazov and G.G. Stetsyura);
- Parallel’nye vychislitel’nye sistemy s obshchim upravleniem (Parallel Computer Systems with Shared Control), Moscow: Energoatomizdat, 1983. — 312 p. (coauthors S.Ya. Vilenkin and I.L. Medvedev);
- Mikroprotsessory i mikro-EVM (Microprocessors and Micro-computers), Moscow: Energiya, 1979. — 232 p.;
- Elementy ZU na MDP strukturakh (Elements of Storage Devices Based on MIS Structures), Moscow: Energiya, 1978. — 176 p. (coauthors V.A. Lementuev and M.S. Sonin);
- Tsifrovye avtomaty s nastraivaemoi strukturoi (Digital Automata with an Configurable Structure), Moscow: Energiya, 1974. — 240 p. (coauthor E.V. Evreinov);
- Beskontaktnye ustroistva teleavtomatizatsii promyshlennykh predpriyatii (Non-contact Remote Control Devices for Industrial Enterprises), Moscow: Energiya, 1973. — 280 p. (coauthors N.B. Grinberg, Yu.V. Gorelik, L.A. Zak, A.A. Levin, Ya.R. Levin, V.A. Maksimovich, N.T. Mikhailyuk, N.N. Nesterenko, and I.V. Prozumentor);
- Odnorodnye mikroelektronnye assotsiativnye protsessory (Homogeneous Microelectronic Associative Processors), Moscow: Sovetskoe Radio, 1973. — 280 p. (coauthors G.M. Popova, O.G. Smorodinova, and A.A. Chudin);
- Mikroelektronika i odnorodnye struktury dlya postroeniya logicheskikh i vychislitel’nykh ustroistv (Microelectronics and Homogeneous Structures for Building Logic and Computing Devices), Moscow: Nauka, 1967. — 227 p. (coauthors N.A. Abramova, E.V. Babicheva, and V.V. Ignatushchenko);
- Beskontaktnye elementy i sistemy telemekhaniki dlya avtomatizatsii predpriyatii gornoi promyshlennosti (Non-contact Remote Control Elements and Systems to Automate Mining Enterprises), Moscow: Nedra, 1965. — 203 p. (coauthors N.B. Grinberg, L.A. Zak, A.A. Levin, and V.A. Maksimovich);
- Beskontaktnye elementy i sistemy telemekhaniki s vremennnym razdeleniem signalov (Non-contact Remote Control Elements and Systems with the Time Separation of Signals), Moscow: Nauka, 1964. — 415 p. (coauthors V.A. Zhozhikashvili, R.V. Bilik, and K.T. Mityushkin).
They are presented in the Institute’s database:
https://www.ipu.ru/d7ipu/books_library_grid?combine=Прангишвили
Some journal papers by Prangishvili are available at Math-Net.Ru:
https://www.mathnet.ru/php/person.phtml?&personid=57781&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 (1956—1994):
https://archive.org/details/pub_automation-and-remote-control
and the journal page at SpringerLink (2001—2022):
https://www.springer.com/journal/10513
Also, Prangishvili’s publications (including inventions) can be found at:
https://elibrary.ru/author_items.asp?authorid=2318&pubrole=100&show_refs=1&show_option=0
Articles about I.V. Prangishvili
1. | Iveri V. Prangishvili, Probl. Upr., 2006, no. 2, 97. |
2. | Iveri Varlamovich Prangishvili (May 6, 1930—February 28, 2006), Avtomat. i Telemekh., 2006, no. 4, 188—189; Autom. Remote Control, 67:4 (2006), 678—679. |
3. | A. A. Ambartzumyan, 50 years in Science (to I. V. Prangishvili’s 75th Anniversary), Probl. Upr., 2005, no. 3, 72—81. |
4. | The 75th Birthday of Academician Iveri Varlamovich Prangishvili, Avtomat. i Telemekh., 2005, no. 6, 3—4; Autom. Remote Control, 66:6 (2005), 851—852. |
In addition, see the Wikipedia page devoted to Prangishvili:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Прангишвили,_Ивери_Варламович
Scopus Author ID: 6602913035