Andrew Packard passed away on September 30 after a long fight against
cancer. Andy’s career was marked by profound and influential results
including foundational theory for structured singular value analysis
and linear parameter varying systems. These results provide a
framework for designing automatic control systems, e.g. autopilots on
aircraft, in the presence of model uncertainty. He received numerous
awards for his work including the 1995 Eckman award for the
outstanding researcher (under 35) in automatic control and the 2005
IEEE Control Systems Technology award. One of Andy’s key
contributions to our field was to transition these theoretical results
from academic examples to fully functional software. In particular,
Andy and his late colleague Gary Balas co-authored the Robust Control
Toolbox in Matlab. This software is used by academics and practicing
engineers all over the world for control system design.
