Presentation of Professor Georges BASTIN

Georges Bastin is a foremost Belgian scientific figure in the community of automatic control experts, highly recognised internationally for his work in the area of non-linear control for complex dynamic systems. He was the Director of the Control Science, Dynamics and Systems Analysis laboratory and the Mathematical Engineering Department of the Université Catholique de Louvain. Georges Bastin is a specialist in the control of complex dynamic systems. He takes a particular interest in the modelling and control of compartmental dynamic systems, networked dynamic systems governed by conservation laws (partial differential equations). He displays outstanding intellectual curiosity, which has led him to focus on a very wide variety of applications ranging from biotechnologies to open-channel hydraulic systems, road traffic or communications networks, and robotics. Georges Bastin has always continuously strived to develop academic and industrial partnerships through his involvement in numerous research agreements and programmes. Georges Bastin has produced more than 290 referenced publications (chapters of books, articles in specialised international journals and international conferences). He was the co-editor of two works that have had a strong impact on the international community of automation experts. For several years, he was a Professor at the Fondation Universitaire Luxembourgeoise and an Associate Professor at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines in Paris. He has been a Guest Professor at the University of Canberra and the University of Melbourne, Australia, as well as at INP Grenoble (at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure d'Hydraulique de Grenoble). For a long time, Georges Bastin has maintained strong ties with the French and Grenoble control science communities, in the framework of various forms of scientific collaboration (research projects, thesis committees, etc.). In awarding him an honorary Doctorate, INP Grenoble acknowledges a prominent figure in the international control science community, one who has shown great scientific rigour and uncommon intellectual curiosity, and who has been collaborating for a long time with the Grenoble Control Science laboratories and, since more recently, with the GIPSA-lab. INP Grenoble also hereby conveys its interest in a scientific discipline at the frontiers of Engineering Sciences and Information and Communication Technologies.