Heinrich Kindler

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heinrich Kindler, Siegfried Pilz and Hans-Joachim Zander at a public scientific event in Dresden (from left to right)

Heinrich Kindler (born November 29, 1909 in Breslau , † February 23, 1985 in Dresden ) was a German physicist and professor . He was one of the pioneers of regulation and control technology and co-founded the training of qualified engineers for control technology in Germany .

Life

From 1915 to 1928 he attended a secondary school in Breslau. After graduating from high school, he studied physics, mathematics and chemistry in Breslau and Münster. In 1934, he put his teaching degree and became a dissertation "On the infra-red absorption spectrum of some sulfates and mica and the temperature dependence of their vibrations" at Clemens Schaefer at the University of Breslau for Dr. phil. PhD.

After two years of research at the University of Breslau and at the Heinrich Hertz Institute of the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg , he finally found permanent industrial positions as a physicist, first at the Telefunken company (July 1936 to December 1937) and then at the Askania gyroscope company in Berlin-Marienfelde until May 1945. His patent applications from this time show that he also dealt very intensively with questions of the regulation . The work at that time related to gyroscopes, slave controllers and electromechanical computing devices for missile control.

At that time Hermann Schmidt had also dealt with control engineering problems in his courses at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg . In addition to him, Adolf Leonhard in Stuttgart also offered courses on control engineering specifically for the field of electrical engineering and published a textbook on this in 1940, which he continued to generalize after the Second World War. As early as 1941 Schmidt had submitted a memorandum for the establishment of an institute for control engineering at the Association of German Engineers ( VDI ). This institute should be established in Berlin and take on a leading role in the new field for all of Germany.

In 1944, based on this suggestion, the world's first chair for control engineering was established at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, to which Hermann Schmidt was appointed, but the proposed institute was not yet founded. After the war, Schmidt continued to work in his chair from 1954 until shortly before his death in 1968, but the pending establishment of the institute was not made up for until his retirement in 1960.

At that time, Kindler worked from August 1945 as a doctor of physics in his previous specialty of gyroscopes and slave controllers for the Soviet occupying power: until October 1946 in an institute of the Red Army in Berlin, then until February 1953 in Leningrad / Soviet Union . After his return from the Soviet Union, he joined the Institute for Radiation Sources of the German Academy of Sciences (DAW) in East Berlin as a research assistant in May 1953 (Director: Robert Rompe ).

After the war, control engineering had to be restarted in both parts of Germany at the beginning of the 1950s. Various older professors at the Faculties of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering also dealt with subject-related issues relating to control technology, while young scientists - like Schmidt and Kindler - were enthusiastic about control engineering as an independent and interdisciplinary discipline.

In January 1954, Kindler gave a lecture on the subject of "Some basic concepts of regulation" at the control technology conference of the GDR Physical Society . In this, probably his first publication on control technology, he showed extensive knowledge of the literature: not only the basic DIN 19226 , for which Hermann Schmidt had already done the preparatory work with a VDI technical committee in 1941, and the German pioneering work by Oldenbourg and Sartorius from 1944 , which for the first time included a complete presentation of general control theory , were cited, but also the two introductory German textbooks by Otto Schäfer and Winfried Oppelt , published or announced in 1953, as well as foreign sources. With this lecture, Kindler drew attention to himself as a specialist in control engineering in the scientific field, and afterwards he steered his professional development permanently in this direction.

Act as a professor

From 1954, in addition to his work in Berlin, Kindler was also a lecturer for the principles of control engineering at the TH Dresden . In May 1954, the State Secretariat for Higher Education in East Berlin finally determined that it was necessary to set up an independent institute for control engineering at the TH Dresden.

In 1955, Kindler was therefore appointed full professor for control engineering at the TH Dresden. In August 1955, the Institute for Control Engineering at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the TH Dresden was founded as the first institute of its kind in Germany and headed by Kindler as director, initially until 1957, while continuing to work at the Berlin Academy Institute for Radiation Sources.

This institute for control engineering stood at the beginning of a whole series of German-language institutes for control engineering: 1955 at the TH Dresden with Heinrich Kindler, in 1956 at the TH Darmstadt with Winfried Oppelt (1912-1999) and in 1957 at the RWTH Aachen with Otto Shepherd (1909-2000). This series was then continued in rapid succession at other technical universities. This also fulfilled a demand made by Hermann Schmidt , which he had raised in 1941 together with the VDI technical committee he headed in the “Memorandum for the establishment of an institute for control engineering”.

At the same time, Kindler was committed to providing relevant specialist books in this area in the GDR. Several books have emerged from his teaching letters, for example Heinz Töpfer and Werner Kriesel developed the book “Functional units of automation technology” with 5 editions from the “components of control engineering ”. He also arranged for several textbooks to be translated into German, whereby he himself took responsibility for the publication of the German editions. In his lectures, in addition to control engineering, he also imparted basic knowledge of switching algebra as the theoretical basis of control engineering . At the same time, he drew attention to the fact that control technology will be of future importance as the second subject within automation technology.

In February 1957, the German Academy of Sciences (DAW) founded an office for regulation and control technology in Dresden, which received the status of an academy institute in July 1962; this institution was thus the first non-university research institution in this field in the German-speaking area. Kindler headed both this academy institute and the TH Institute for Automatic Control until 1969. From 1957 to 1960 he was also dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.

In addition, Kindler has always performed numerous scientific and social functions: German Society for Measurement and Automation Technology (DGMA, Chairman 1963/64) in the Chamber of Technology (KdT), founding member of the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC) in 1956 , Chairman of the National Committee of the GDR in the IFAC, temporarily chairman of the TC Education of the IFAC. In addition, he worked on scientific and technical advisory boards: 1957 to 1967 member of the research council of the GDR and chairman of the central working group for BMSR technology as well as advisory boards of several industrial combines; Editorial board of the trade journal measure, control, regulate (msr) in Berlin and others

At the Academy Institute, Kindler had to coordinate the work of around 30 scientific employees. Among his department heads were:

  • At that time, Karl Reinisch designed, successfully developed and used a special analog computer as a model control loop. In doing so, he innovatively further developed the technology of the analog computers for real-time control of airplanes ( Heinrich Wilhelmi ) and rockets ( Helmut Hölzer ), which were developed in the late 1930s, in the sense of a largely universally applicable analog computer technology. Reinisch then started his theoretical work, which he continued as a full professor at the TH Ilmenau.
  • Heinz Töpfer , who had learned and studied precision mechanics, devoted himself to the development of new modules for automation technology. The pneumatic control system DRELOBA (Dresden logic modules) was developed in close cooperation with industry, which was produced in series in the Dresden controller and received international attention. This outstanding performance was therefore in 1964 with a national prize awarded II. Class for winning collective with Kindler, pottery, two other Academy members and two industry colleagues. Töpfer was appointed full professor at the TH Magdeburg in 1967, and he finally returned to Dresden in 1978 as Kindler's successor.

At the TU Institute, Kindler was supported in academic teaching by academic staff. Under his direction, a control engineering internship was set up and several series of letters for distance learning were written. The works "Small control engineering internship" (co-author: Günter Pohl) and "Collection of tasks on control engineering" (co-authors: Helmut Buchta and Hans-Helmut Wilfert) were published in book form.

His institute achieved a significant widespread impact in particular through the fact that highly qualified employees also provided support at other universities and were able to acquire their own teaching experience. An example is the TH Magdeburg, Institute for Control Engineering (Director: Heinrich Wilhelmi ). Here were guest lecturers: Karl Reinisch , Siegfried Pilz (both later Prof. in Ilmenau), Hans-Joachim Zander (later head of the academy in Dresden and Prof. for control technology) and Heinz Töpfer (later Prof. in Magdeburg and Dresden).

Furthermore, Kindler tried quite successfully to maintain professional connections beyond the territory of the GDR and the subject area. Despite the growing political restrictions, particularly good contacts were maintained with Winfried Oppelt in Darmstadt and with his students who were active in control engineering chairs in Munich, Hanover, Karlsruhe and others. In 1966 the TH Darmstadt appointed the Dresden professor Kindler for his pioneering work in the field of regulation and control technology to an honorary doctorate (Dr.-Ing. E. h.). In addition, Kindler was highly honored by being elected a member of the venerable German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina in Halle (Saale) in 1970.

When assessing the work of his employees, Kindler had a good feel for weak points in detail. With a view to the long-term development tendencies, he foresaw the coming stronger mathematization and ensured that the desired professional competence was available through recruitment or targeted qualification of employees at the institute. Heinz-Ludwig Burmeister , who holds a doctorate in maths , was brought to the Academy Institute in 1960 as head of the control mathematics department. From 1969 he taught as a second professor at the TU Institute. At the same time, the doctorate engineer Helmut Buchta was appointed university lecturer for process identification and stochastic signal processing.

The third university reform of the GDR in 1968 resulted in the dissolution of the previous institute structures at the universities. At the TU Dresden, in 1969, the information technology section of the field of control engineering and process control was created, which was headed by Kindler until his retirement by the Minister for Higher Education and Technical Education on September 1, 1975.

In the 20 years of his university teaching activity, Kindler has successfully supervised a total of 46 doctoral students and 2 post-doctoral students (B doctoral candidates). In 1972 he published another paperback called Der Regelkreis - An Introduction , for which he was the sole author. If you want to get to know Heinrich Kindler's way of thinking and speaking in memory of Heinrich Kindler, you should ask this little book, it says more than long comments.

Throughout his entire activity as a university lecturer , Heinrich Kindler, first as director of the institute, later as dean of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and as divisional manager in the information technology section, advocated the further expansion of the field of “regulation and control technology”. At the same time, he successfully laid the foundation for a broad and future-oriented specialist profile in automation technology.

Kindler is one of the pioneers of regulation and control technology and one of the pioneers in the training of qualified engineers in this field in Germany. Hundreds of qualified engineers and scientists trained by him worked in responsible positions and, for their part, created an increasing number of qualified engineers in automation by also taking on teaching tasks. Numerous professors emerged from Heinrich Kindler's academic environment in Dresden : Karl Reinisch and Siegfried Pilz (Ilmenau), Heinz Töpfer (Magdeburg and Dresden), Heinz-Ludwig Burmeister , Hans-Joachim Zander and Horst Strobel (Dresden), Georg Brack and Dominik Surek (Merseburg), Wolfgang Weller and Wolfgang Wilhelmi (Berlin), Herbert Ehrlich (Leipzig), Christian Döschner and Peter Neumann (Magdeburg), Michael Ketting (Bochum) and others

His rich experience and high professional qualifications were reflected in patents and numerous specialist publications as well as in particular their recognition through being awarded the national prize in 1964, as well as through an honorary doctorate and membership in the famous Leopoldina academy of scholars.

It is thanks to his intensive work since the mid-1950s that the field of automation technology has been able to develop very broadly and successfully in the entire German-speaking area up to the current state with an international top position. All in all, Kindler has left an academic school with a lasting impact.

Kindler ended his professional activity at the end of the academic year 1974/1975. His pupil Heinz Töpfer took up his position as head of department at the TU Dresden in autumn 1978. The management of the Dresden academy technical cybernetics in the newly founded Central Institute for Cybernetics and Information Processes (ZKI) Berlin of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW) had previously been transferred to his student Hans-Joachim Zander in 1971 . Kindler died in Dresden in February 1985.

Fonts (selection)

  • Patents registered at home and abroad and used by industry.
  • Basics of automatic regulation / overall speech. d. Original edition: WW Solodownikow. Translation from Russian: O. Friederici, E. Gilde .; Edited by H. Kindler. Verlag Technik Berlin, Oldenbourg-Verlag Munich, 1959.
  • Status and perspective of technical cybernetics: Short version of the lectures of the 3rd All Union Conference for Automatic Control, Odessa 1965 / [Translation: R. Bochmann u. a.] Ed .: H. Kindler and D. Hofmann.
  • Synthesis of control systems with process computers / Vladimír Strejc u. Author collective. In German language ed. by Heinrich Kindler u. Hans-Jürgen Schulz. [Trans. from d. Czech: Arno Kuhn], Akademie-Verlag Berlin, 1967.
  • Small control engineering internship (with G. Pohl).
  • Collection of exercises on control engineering. Verlag Technik Berlin, Oldenbourg-Verlag Munich, Vienna, 1964 (with H. Buchta and H.-H. Wilfert).
  • Introduction to control engineering. Lessons for distance learning, Vol. 1–4. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1970 (with H. Wiesenhütter).
  • Basics of control engineering. Lessons for distance learning, Vol. 1–3. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1970.
  • Theoretical control engineering. Lessons for distance learning, Vol. 1–6. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1970 (with Hannelore Hinkel).
  • Control engineering components. Lessons for distance learning, Vol. 1–4. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1972 (with H. Wiesenhütter).
  • Control engineering. In: Philippow, E. (Ed.): Taschenbuch Elektrotechnik. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1963 (with K. Reinisch ).
  • The control loop - an introduction. Scientific paperbacks; Vol. 106: Mathematics and Physics series. Akademie-Verlag Berlin, Pergamon Press Oxford, Vieweg-Verlag Braunschweig 1972, ISBN 3-528-06106-5 .

literature

  • Reinschke, KJ: Connections beyond the GDR territory. Memories of Heinrich Kindler, first professor for control engineering at the TH Dresden . In: Dresdner UniversitätsJournal 20/2009 . Dresden December 8, 2009, p. 4 ( online [PDF; 3.8 MB ]).
  • Reinschke, KJ: Memory of Heinrich Kindler, first professor for control engineering at the TH Dresden. In: Automation technology, Munich. Vol. 58, No. 06, 2010, pp. 345-347.
  • Who was who in the GDR? Federal foundation to come to terms with the SED dictatorship: Kindler, Heinrich

Individual evidence

  1. Starke, L .: From hydraulic regulators to process control systems. The success story of the Askania works in Berlin and the device and controller works in Teltow. 140 years of industrial history, tradition and future. Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin 2009, pp. 11–46, ISBN 978-3-8305-1715-3 .
  2. Fasol, KH : Hermann Schmidt , natural scientist and philosopher - pioneer of general control loop theory in Germany. In: Automation technology, Munich . Vol. 49, No. 3, 2001, pp. 138-144.
  3. Leonhard, A .: The automatic control in electrical engineering. J. Springer, Berlin 1940.
  4. Leonhard, A .: The automatic regulation. Theoretical basics with practical examples. Springer, Berlin; Göttingen; Heidelberg 1949, 2nd edition 1957, 3rd edition 1962, ISBN 978-3-642-92841-3 .
  5. Dittmann, F .: On the development of the “general regulatory knowledge” in Germany. Hermann Schmidt and the “Memorandum for the establishment of an institute for control engineering”. In: Scientific journal TU Dresden. Vol. 44, No. 6, 1995, pp. 88-94.
  6. Oldenbourg, RC, Sartorius, H .: Dynamics of automatic controls. R. Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich; Berlin 1944.
  7. Schäfer, O .: Basics of the automatic regulation. Technischer Verlag Heinz Resch, Graefelfing 1953, 7th edition 1974.
  8. ^ Oppelt, W .: Small manual of technical control processes. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim 1954, 4th edition Verlag Chemie, Weinheim and Verlag Technik, Berlin 1964, 5th edition 1972, ISBN 3-527-25347-5 (translations into several languages).
  9. Reinschke, KJ : Connections beyond the GDR territory. Memories of Heinrich Kindler, first professor for control engineering at the TH Dresden . In: Dresdner UniversitätsJournal 20/2009 . Dresden December 8, 2009, p. 4 ( online [PDF; 3.8 MB ]).
  10. Reinschke, KJ: Memory of Heinrich Kindler, first professor for control engineering at the TH Dresden. In: Automation technology, Munich. Vol. 58, No. 06, 2010, pp. 345-347.
  11. ^ Rolf Isermann, Henning Tolle: Professor Winfried Oppelt 1912–1999 . In: at - automation technology, methods and applications in control, regulation and information technology . tape 48 , issue 1/2000. Oldenbourg Verlag, January 2000, ISSN  0178-2312 , p. 47 f .
  12. ^ Töpfer, H .; Kriesel, W .: Functional units of automation technology - electrical, pneumatic, hydraulic. Verlag Technik, Berlin and VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1977, 5th edition 1988, ISBN 3-341-00290-1 .
  13. Solodownikow, WW (general editor): Basics of the automatic regulation (from Russian; German adaptation under H. Kindler). Verlag Technik, Berlin and R. Oldenbourg-Verlag, Munich 1958.
  14. Solodownikow, WW (Ed.): Components of the control engineering (from the Russian; German adaptation under H. Kindler and GC Brack ). Vol. 1 .: Measuring devices, amplifiers, actuating devices. Vol. 2 .: Correction and calculation elements. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1963.
  15. Reinisch, K .: Cybernetic basics and description of continuous systems . Verlag Technik, Berlin 1974 as well as analysis and synthesis of continuous control systems. Verlag Technik, Berlin 1979.
  16. ^ Neumann, P. (Ed.): Magdeburg's automation technology in transition - from industrial to research location. Authors: Christian Diedrich , Rolf Höltge, Ulrich Jumar , Achim Kienle, Reinhold Krampitz, Günter Müller, Peter Neumann, Konrad Pusch, Helga Rokosch, Barbara Schmidt, Ulrich Schmucker, Gerhard Unger, Günter Wolf. Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg ; Institute for Automation and Communication Magdeburg (ifak), Magdeburg 2018, production: Grafisches Centrum Cuno GmbH & Co. KG, Calbe (Saale), ISBN 978-3-944722-75-7 .
  17. Pilz, S .: Theory of switching systems. In: Eugen Philippow (Hrsg.): Taschenbuch Elektrotechnik. Volume 3, communications engineering. Verlag Technik, Berlin and Carl Hanser Verlag, Munich 1969, 1624 pp.
  18. Zander, H.-J. : Control of discrete event processes. New methods for process description and design of control algorithms. Springer Vieweg Verlag, Wiesbaden 2015, pp. 265–275, ISBN 978-3-658-01381-3 , e-book ISBN 978-3-658-01382-0 .
  19. Weller, W .: An overview of automation technology. Beuth Verlag, Berlin; Vienna; Zurich 2008, pp. 133–195, ISBN 978-3-410-16760-0 . Weller, W .: Automation technology through the ages - development history of a fascinating subject. Verlag epubli GmbH, Berlin 2013, pp. 32-40, ISBN 978-3-8442-5487-7 . Weller, W .: The system technology as an innovative concept. Thinking in systems - a new paradigm for handling technical and natural systems. Books on Demand GmbH, Norderstedt 2008, pp. 46-74, ISBN 978-3-8370-5748-5 .
  20. Kriesel, W .: Future models for computer science, automation and communication. In: Fuchs-Kittowski, Frank ; Kriesel, Werner (ed.): Computer science and society. Festschrift for the 80th birthday of Klaus Fuchs-Kittowski . Peter Lang International Science Publishers, PL Academic Research, Frankfurt a. M .; Bern; Bruxelles; New York; Oxford; Warszawa; Vienna 2016, pp. 415-430, ISBN 978-3-631-66719-4 (print), E- ISBN 978-3-653-06277-9 (e-book).