Boris Nikolaevich
Petrov
1913-1980
Boris Nikolaevich Petrov was a Soviet scientist in the field of automatic control, an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a Hero of Socialist Labour, and a laureate of the Lenin Prize and the USSR State Prize. He was born in Smolensk on 11 March 1913 and devoted his life to science, being elected an academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1960; in 1969 he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labour. He received the Lenin Prize (1966) and the USSR State Prize (1972), and was decorated with the Orders of Lenin, the October Revolution, the Red Banner of Labour, and the Red Star. Among his most important scientific achievements were the creation of the method of structural transformations of automatic system diagrams and the development of the corresponding mathematical apparatus, known as the algebra of structural transformations. He conducted in-depth research on the integration of nonlinear differential equations, which led to the discovery of the so-called “Petrov phenomenon.” Petrov also became one of the founders of the theory of invariance of control systems and formulated a criterion for the physical realizability of invariance conditions, known as Petrov’s two-channel principle. From 1979, Boris Nikolaevich served as Vice-President of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, was editor-in-chief of the journal Proceedings of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Technical Cybernetics, and was a full member of the International Academy of Astronautics as well as a member of several foreign academies of sciences. The memory of this outstanding scientist is immortalized in the name of a square, which stands as a tribute to his scientific legacy.
Address: Moscow, Akademika Petrova Square
