Lessons Learned from a Control Systems Way of Life

Abstract

As a control engineer (and proud of it!), I know that controlling through transition—the transient response—is the most difficult part of a control problem but also the part where you learn the most. So, I would like to reflect on the “lessons learned” during the transitions and uncertainties that have occurred during my career and hope they help some of you think about your future. My life breaks down nicely into roughly 20-year segments. My first 20 were dedicated to getting a driver’s license, getting out of high school, and getting into the University of Florida. The next 20 were dedicated to getting out of college, getting married, raising a family, and working in aerospace and academia. The next 20 were dedicated to enjoying my family, except when my children got their driver’s licenses, and working in the automotive industry, retiring when I turned 60. I am now 67 years old, so I am seven plus years into my next 20 year segment (I hope)! I am doing something different from the prior 60 years because I believe that age is a state of mind and that learning totally new subjects makes life exciting and youthful. An education in control systems allows one to tackle almost anything (isn’t life just a near-optimal nonlinear, stochastic control problem?!). My working engineering career started in 1960 when I became a co-op student at the Army Ballistic Missile Agency in Huntsville, Alabama; later in the year it became the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. I was assigned to the group that was struggling with the problem of controlling rockets with a new technology: the digital computer. And that leads to the first lesson.