János Somló

After graduating from university, he started working as a research engineer at the Pneumatic and Hydraulic Devices Factory in Budapest.

From 1963, he continued his work at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Computer Science and Automation Research Institute (SZTAKI), initially as a research associate, and eventually as the permanent head of the Automation Department until 1986.
Meanwhile, he was a correspondence aspirant at the Moscow Energy University (MEI; 1964-1967), then a Ford Foundation scholar in the United States (Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan and Purdue University, Lafayette, Indiana, 1968-1969).

Addressing research problems in control theory, he developed a general method for the harmonic linearization of piecewise linear systems. He developed several proposals for the implementation of computer-aided design methods for control systems. Under his leadership, a CAD (Computer-aided Design) control engineering program package was developed.
The Automation Department he led included a separate office for CAD coordination activities implemented in cooperation with the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the National Technical Development Committee (OMFB).

Subsequently, in 1986, he was appointed as a university professor at the Budapest University of Technology (BME). He taught subjects related to manufacturing automation, adaptive control and robotics at the Department of Mechatronics, Optics and Mechanical Informatics. Between 1999 and 2003, he was awarded the Széchenyi Professorship. He established and led the Russian-language robotics education at the university for 15 years.

He has been a visiting professor in Germany (Karlsruhe) and Finland (Oulu). In the first half of the 2000s, he was a visiting professor at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) (Sydney, Australia) for 3 months each year.

From 2010 he taught at Óbuda University (ÓE) as a university professor, later as a professor emeritus.

His research areas: integrated manufacturing systems and processes; system-level optimization; manufacturing planning and process optimization; robotics; adaptive control algorithms; open architecture robot control; the so-called "flexible manufacturing" systems (FMS).
In addition to his numerous publications, he was the co-author of 4 professional books.

He was a member of the Qualification Committee of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences; he was the secretary of the Hungarian branch of IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control) for 12 years; he was the vice-chairman of the IFAC Manufacturing Technology Committee for 10 years. He was also the chairman of the Theoretical Committee of the Hungarian Measurement and Automation Society and the vice-chairman of the Hungarian Robot Association.

Honors: Order of Merit of the Hungarian People's Republic; Doctor Honoris Causa (Moscow State University of Technology, STANKIN); Academy Award (MTA, 2005).