Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts died on ... sity of Massachusetts in 1965 and was made Professor of. Electrical and ... We will miss him.
IEEE TRANSACTIONSON AUTOMATIC
CONTROL,
809
VOL. AC-28, NO. 8, AUGUST 1983
In Memoriam
Richard V. Monopoli (1930-1 982) Richard VitoMonopoli,Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts died on March 19, 1982 at the age of fifty-one. His sudden passing at such an early age came as ashock to all his friends who knew him as a warm and talented colleague, full of life and very much involved with the world. After receiving his B.S. degreefrom the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1952, Dick served as an Electronics Engineer and Radar Officer in the Air force,^ and later worked as an engineer at IBM and Speidel Corporations. He receivedhis Master‘s degree in 1960 from Brown University and the Ph.D. degree in 1962 from the University of Connecticut. Dick joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts in 1965 and was made Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering in 1969. In research, Dickw libe best rememberedfor his numerous contributions to adaptive control. His most well-known paper, “Model Reference Adaptive Control with an Augmented Error Signal,” introduced the concept of an augmented error for the generation of stable adaptive laws and appeared in this TRANSACTIONS in October 1974. This conceptrepresentedamajor breakthrough in the 1970’s when the global stability problem of adaptive control seemingly defied solution. It was to a large extent responsible for the resurgence of interest in the field leading eventually to the resolution of the problem in 1980. From 1975 to 1982 Dick worked on a variety of theoretical questions on
adaptive systems involving measurement noise, time-varying parameters, and multiple outputs. In the last few years he was convinced that the prospect of applyingtheory systematically to complex engineering problems was close at hand and turned his attention to the design of practical adaptive systems. Dick was deeply committed to his profession and took his responsibilities as a teacher seriously. It is not surprising that he was greatly respected,admired, and loved by all his students. He participated in the many activities of the Control Systems Society with the same sense of commitment. His tall, smiling figure with the ever-present cigar was a familiar and welcome sight at control conferences. His friends and colleagues knew him as an impartial and helpful man and he was constantly in demand to organize sessions and chair panel discussions.Alow-key person witha wry sense of humor,Dickwas at his bestwhen dealing with less modest membersas panelists. Marked by dedication to teaching and research, warm friendship, compassion and love,DickMonopoli’slife renews our faith in human nature. We w l im i s s him.
K. S. Narendra Department of Electrical Engineering Yale University New Haven, CT
