Active System Control

Now in its second edition, this book introduces an approach to active system control. This approach, when applied through design and development improves our technological systems. It extends concepts of system control using data accumulation, state and structural dependencies. The authors define these properties in terms of reliability, performance and energy-efficiency, and self-adaption. They describe how they bridge the gap between data accumulation and analysis in terms of interpolation with the real physical models when data used for interpretation of the system conditions. The authors introduce a principle of active system control and safety - an approach that explains what a model of a system should have, making computer systems more efficient, a crucial new concern in application domains such as safety critical, embedded and low-power autonomous systems like transport, healthcare, and other dynamic systems with moving substances and elements. On a theoretical level, this book further extends the concept of fault tolerance, introducing a system level of design for improving overall efficiency. On a practical level it illustrates how active system approach might help our systems become self-evolving.

This updated new edition of Active System Control  contains new chapters on the system software concept and the future of active systems control and a chapter containing case studies of unsolved aviation safety incidents.

Professor Igor Schagaev is the Director of IT-ACS Ltd Stevenage, UK. He received PhD in Computer Science in 1987 from the Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Problem of Control; Certificate in Business Organization of Research Program Management 1994 Kingston University, under Rothchild-Thatcher foundation program, further extended by “International” aspect TACIS (EC) 1996; Certificate in Learning and teaching in High Education, University of North London 2001. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Analyst and Programmers (UK) since 1992 and Fellow of British Computer Society since 2013. Igor has previously worked as an Electromechanical Engineer at the Smolensk aviation factory, USSR, a Senior Programmer and Design Engineer at the Institute of Advanced Computations, Central Statistic Bureau of USSR, and as a Head of Fault Tolerant System Branch in Institute of Control Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences. The latter was combined with work as Senior Design Engineer and System Programmer for Avionics at Sukhoy Design Bureau. Since 1992 Igor has been Director of ATLAB Ltd. Bristol (now converged into IT-ACS Ltd). Since 1989 Igor collaborated with Prof Niklaus Wirth and Prof Juerg Gutknecht  both ETH Zurich. The result of it was Directorate General of Research of EC grant ONBASS 2004-2009.  Since 1989 in system design and software, Igor has published internationally 70+ papers in journals and conferences and seven books. Igor was keynote speaker at World Conferences in UK, China, USA, provided consultancy for Financial Times, Sunday Times, Boston Facultimedia, and Swedish government -- all on the subject of ICT, avionics, and aerospace domains. Igor has been honoured with several industry awards, achievements, and grants. He is author of the Springer titles: V Castano and I Schagaev, “Resilient Computer System Design” and 3 editions of Schagaev I, Gutknekht J “Software Design for Resilient Computer Systems”. Since 2007, together with Dr Brian Kirk and Alex Schagaev, Igor holds a patent on Method and Apparatus for Active System Safety, GB 2448351.

Dr. Brian R. Kirk is the founder and Director of the Institute for Active Resilient Systems, formerly Robinson Systems Engineering Ltd. in the UK, which has specialized in designing and building safety-related computing and control systems for over 40 years. He received his PhD in Methods of Active System Safety in 2007, formerly attaining an MSc in Industrial Electronics from Imperial College and a BSc (Hons) in Electronics from Salford University in the 1960s. He worked on early graphics based CAD and simulators for microchip design with Marconi Research labs. In the 1970s, he worked as design manager for microprocessors and memories at General Instrument Corp. There, he worked on custom IC design and early 1,4,8 and 16 bit processors, including the PIC series, the Sinclair calculators, and early TV Console games (such as Pong). After working for Mergenthaler Linotype on system designs during the phototypesetting revolution, he founded Robinson Systems Engineering Ltd. He has presented many papers linking theory to practical applications at conferences around the world and collaborated with Professors’ Wirth and Gutknecht's group at ETH Zurich for over 20 years, co-authoring the Zonnon Language Report. As joint author of the book Programming Oberon in Windows, he released Robinson's Oberon compiler for Windows as part of the Programmers Oberon Workbench as freeware, inspired by the usability and ubiquity of Borland Pascal. In collaboration with Prof Schagaev Brian worked within EC DG Research funded project ONBASS (On-Board Active System Safety) for aviation. IPR resulting of this project was patented and formation with Prof Schagaev a company IT-ACS Ltd. More recently he has provided technical advice to US Legal teams on the causes of Sudden Unintended Acceleration in vehicles that contributed to a billion dollar settlement in a single  Class Action case and contributed to Tom Murray's book Deadly by Design. He is currently working with the Institute of Engineering and Technology (UK) and IEEE on Standards for improving the Electromagnetic Resilience of Systems. He is a member the British Computer Society, Institute of Directors, and life member of the ACM (USA) and the International Society of Bassists, being an enthusiastic double bass player in various jazz bands.