Professor David Owens
FREng, BSc, PhD, ARCS, CMath, FIMA, CEng, FIEE, FIMechE
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Emeritus Professor
Full contact details
School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Amy Johnson Building
Portobello Street
ºù«Ӱҵ
S1 3JD
- Profile
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Professor Owens is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, elected for his contributions to education and research in the area of Engineering Control and Systems.
He was Head of the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering (1999-2008) and Dean of the Faculty of Engineering (2004-2008). Before this he held senior positions as Head of the School of Engineering (University of Exeter, 1990-1999) and the Division of Dynamics and Control (Strathclyde, 1985-1990).
The earlier part of his career was with the C&I Division of the UKAEA at Winfrith and with the Department of Control Engineering at this University. He has been active in the Engineering Institutions for many years serving on subject specific and senior committees of the RAEng, the IET and IEEE, the IMechE and the International Federation of Automatic Control.
He has made substantial contributions to research into Control and Systems Theory since 1969 with over 45 successful PhD supervisions and 500 publications in the international literature plus a number of monographs (1979, 1981, 1982, ...., 2016, 2025) covering aspects of Control Systems Design, Optimization, Repetitive Control, and Iterative Learning Control. Applications have included nuclear reactor dynamics and control, mining systems control, microswitch manufacture, aerospace systems control, mechanical test systems, manufacturing robotics and control, and stroke rehabilitation algorithms.
Since his retirement from full-time employment at the University, he has continued with research and publication with a number of IEEE papers and two well-regarded Springer research Monographs (2016, 2025) using an optimization paradigm in Iterative Learning Control. In addition he has reviewed regularly for the IEEE and other significant journals and assessed many research grant and Fellowship applications for national research bodies, including the Science Foundation Ireland. He has acted as a retained consultant on robot control for the Robotics Division of the Italian Institute of Technology in Genoa (2011-14) and advised as a Professor and Senior Scientist in the Institute of Robotics in the Department of EEE at Zhengzhou University, PRC (2016-21).He continues with his research and publication in the area of Learning Algorithms including Iterative Learning Control. with local and international collaborators.
- Research interests
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Indexing terms: control systems design; systems modelling; adaptive and robust control; repetitive control; iterative learning systems; nonlinear control systems; control systems applications.
Following his experience of nuclear dynamics and control with the UKAEA (1969-73), his extensive research interests have spanned several areas. He has made substantial contributions in areas including:- Multivariable control systems design in the frequency domain
- Multivariable root-locus theory
- Approximate modelling for design based on step data
- Repetitive and multi-repetitive control
- Nonlinear, robust and adaptive control
- Multi-dimensional systems theory
- Iterative learning control
- Applied optimization theory
Applications have been in the nuclear, aerospace, automotive, power, manufacturing and process control industries. Over the years, his research has been funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the European Union and the British Council.
He is the author of over 500 refereed technical publications and the author or co-author of four texts, namely, "Feedback and Multivariable Systems" (Peter, Peregrinus, 1979), "Multivariable and Optimal Systems" (Academic Press, 1981), "Analysis and Control of Multipass Processes" (Research Studies Press, 1982 with J B Edwards) and "Stability Analysis for Linear Repetitive Processes" (Springer-Verlag Lecture Notes in Control and Mathematical Sciences 175, 1992, with E Rogers). A further monograph is expected to be published in 2007.