Ioan Doré Landau (born 1 July 1938 in Bucharest, Romania) is a French scientist specializing in automatic control. He is an emeritus research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and has held academic positions at the Grenoble Institute of Technology and the GIPSA‑Lab (CNRS/INPG) in Grenoble, France.
Education
- Engineering degree in electronics, Politehnica University of Bucharest (1959)
- Doctorate in electrical engineering, Politehnica University of Bucharest (1965)
- Doctorate in physical sciences, Université Joseph‑Fourier, Grenoble (1973)
Career
Landau began his career in research and development in Romania, working at the Design Institute for Automation in Bucharest, the Institute of Energy of the Romanian Academy, and later at Alstom and NASA’s Ames Research Center. In 1973 he became an associate professor at the Grenoble Institute of Technology, and in 1976 joined the CNRS, where he was promoted to research director in 1983. From 1987 to 1990 he directed the Grenoble Automation Laboratory (LAG). He was a founding member and the first president (1991‑1993) of the European Union Control Association (EUCA) and served as editor‑in‑chief of the European Journal of Control (1994‑2002).
Research contributions
Landau’s work focuses on system identification, adaptive control, robust digital control, and nonlinear systems. He is known for developing algorithms based on the model‑reference approach to adaptive control and for advancing mathematical tools for automation and signal processing. Over his career he authored or co‑authored more than 400 scientific publications and several influential books, including Adaptive Control: The Model Reference Approach (1979) and Adaptive Systems in Control and Signal Processing (2014).
Awards and honors
- CNRS Silver Medal (1982)
- Prix Michel‑Monpetit (1991)
- Rufus Oldenburger Medal of the IEEE Control Systems Society (2000)
- Grand Gold Medal, Vienna Inventions Exhibition (1968) for a patent on variable‑frequency control of asynchronous motors
Professional activities
Landau has supervised more than 40 doctoral theses and has chaired numerous international conferences, notably the first European Conference on Automatic Control (ECC) in Grenoble (1991). In 1998 the CNRS organized an international conference in his honor titled “Perspectives in Control – Theory and Applications.”
Landau remains active in the control community through research collaborations, mentorship, and participation in professional societies.