György Kovacs

He has been a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Automation Research Institute (AKI) since 1966, and then of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Computer Science and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI). From 1979 he was a scientific department head, from 1990 he was a scientific advisor and head of the CIM (Computer Integrated Manufacturing) Research Laboratory.

He defended his doctoral degree at the Budapest University of Technology in 1976, then became a habilitation and university private teacher in 1995. He earned a candidate's degree at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1978, and a doctorate in 1997.

He was a professor at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics (BME) and the University of Pécs (PE). He was a visiting researcher in the USA (one year), the Soviet Union (two years), the Federal Republic of Germany (one year); visiting professor in Mexico (6 months) and Italy (6+1 months).

He was a professor emeritus at the Faculty of Engineering and Informatics of the University of Applied Sciences, a research professor emeritus at SZTAKI, and a professor at URFU (Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg) and UGATU (Ufa Aviation Technical University, Ufa, Bashkortostan). In 2013, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the latter university.

He has published more than 400 papers in journals and conference proceedings – for example, at the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) and International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) world conferences, and at the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Robotics and Automation Society (RAS) conferences.

He was a member and officer of several Hungarian and international organizations, IEEE senior member, vice-chair of the IFIP TC5 committee; he was a member of the editorial board of four scientific journals. He was often an organizer and invited plenary speaker at international conferences.

His scientific interests were in manufacturing automation, the application of intelligent devices in design and manufacturing, virtual manufacturing, and technology transfer. He led several international projects.