Gene F. Franklin

Who is Gene F. Franklin?

Gene F. Franklin was an American control theorist. He received his B.S. degree in electrical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 1950, his M.S. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1952, and his D.E.Sc. degree from Columbia University in 1955. He taught at Columbia University from 1955 to 1957 before moving to Stanford University where he was Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering until his death in August 2012. His research encompassed all aspects of control incorporating digital logic, including adaptive control of both nonlinear systems and systems with multiple-data sampling.

Prof. Franklin's 1958 text “Sampled-Data Control Systems” introduced digital control to a discipline which had previously operated almost exclusively in the analog domain. This breakthrough allowed control systems to become much more precise and reliable.

He was a recipient of the Richard E. Bellman Control Heritage Award in 2005 for "fundamental contributions to the theory and practice of digital, modern, adaptive, and multivariable control".

Prof. Franklin grew up in North Carolina and served in the US Navy during World War II.