Rudolf E. Kalman

Infobox_Scientist
name = Rudolf E. Kalman


caption =
birth_date = birth date and age|1930|5|19
birth_place =Budapest, Hungary
death_date =
death_place =
residence =United States
nationality = Hungarian American
field = Mathematics
Electrical Engineering
work_institution = Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
alma_mater = Columbia University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
doctoral_advisor = John Ragazzini
awards = IEEE Medal of Honor

Rudolf Emil Kálmán (born May 19 1930) is a Hungarian-American mathematical system theorist and a Professor Emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, who is famous for his co-invention of the Kalman filter, a mathematical technique widely used in control systems and avionics.

Biography

Rudolf Kalman was born in Budapest, Hungary, and obtained his bachelor's in 1953 and master's in 1954 degrees from MIT in electrical engineering. His doctorate in 1957 was from Columbia University. He is married to Constantina née Stavrou. They have two children, Andrew and Elisabeth.

He worked as Research Mathematician at the Research Institute for Advanced Study, in Baltimore, from 1958 until 1964, Professor at Stanford University from 1964 until 1971, and Graduate Research Professor, and Director, at the Center for Mathematical System Theory, University of Florida, Gainesville from 1971 until 1992. Starting in 1973, he simultaneously filled the chair for Mathematical System Theory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich.

He is a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a foreign member of the Hungarian, French, and Russian Academies of Science. He has many honorary doctorates.

He has received the IEEE Medal of Honor in 1974, the IEEE Centennial Medal in 1984, the Inamori foundation's Kyoto Prize in High Technology in 1985, the Steele Prize of the American Mathematical Society in 1987, the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award in 1997, and the NAE Charles Stark Draper Prize in 2008.

Work

Kalman is an electrical engineer by training, and is famous for his co-invention of the Kalman filter, a mathematical technique widely used in control systems and avionics to extract a signal from a series of incomplete and noisy measurements.

Kálmán's ideas on filtering were initially met with skepticism, so much so that he was forced to first publish his results in a mechanical (rather than electrical) engineering journal. He had more success in presenting his ideas, however, while visiting Stanley F. Schmidt at the NASA Ames Research Center in 1960. This led to the use of Kálmán filters during the Apollo program.

References

* cite journal
author = Kalman, R.E.
year = 1960
title = A new approach to linear filtering and prediction problems
journal = Journal of Basic Engineering
volume = 82
issue = 1
pages = 35–45
url = http://www.elo.utfsm.cl/~ipd481/Papers%20varios/kalman1960.pdf
accessdate = 2008-05-03

* cite journal
author = Kalman, R.E.
coauthors = Bucy, R.S.
year = 1961
title = New Results in Linear Filtering and Prediction Theory
url = http://stinet.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADD518892
accessdate = 2008-05-03

External links

* [http://www.cs.unc.edu/~welch/kalman/ The Kalman Filter website]
* [http://www.inamori-f.or.jp/laureates/k01_a_rudolf/prf_e.html Kyoto Prize]
*For Kálmán's PhD students see [http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/id.phtml?id=13021 Rudolf Emil Kálmán] on the [http://www.genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu/html/search.phtml Mathematics Genealogy Project] page.