Rik Pintelon

Biography

Rik Pintelon has played a pioneering role in introducing system identification to the instrumentation and measurement field as a modern approach to solving measurement problems. System identification involves using statistical methods to build mathematical models of dynamical systems using measured data. Dr. Pintelon’s innovative methods have found important use in a diverse range of areas, including measurement and modeling of metal corrosion and deposition, electric machines, inner-ear dynamics, and analysis of civil engineering structures. Dr. Pintelon also developed a frequency domain approach to system identification and pushed for its adoption within the control systems community. In 1991, he and his colleagues were successful in developing the Frequency Domain System Identification (FDIDENT) Toolbox for the popular MATLAB program, which exposed his work to a large audience. Dr. Pintelon also published a highly cited book on system identification in 2001 (System Identification: A Frequency Domain Approach, IEEE Press), with a second edition that will appear in spring 2012.

An IEEE Fellow, Dr. Pintelon is currently a professor with the Electrical Measurement Department at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium.