Otto Schäfer (physicist)

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Otto Schäfer (born September 1, 1909 in Offenbach am Main , † December 8, 2000 in Aachen ) was a German physicist , control engineer and university professor .

Life

Otto Schäfer, the son of Joseph Schäfer and his wife Maria née Simon, graduated from high school in 1928 at the humanistic Hessian high school in his native Offenbach am Main . He then turned to the study of physics at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main to which he in 1933 with the promotion of Dr. phil. nat. completed.

Otto Schäfer subsequently took up a position as a scientific assistant at the Institute for Applied Physics there, in 1938 he completed his habilitation as a private lecturer in applied physics , and in 1947 he was promoted to extraordinary professor .

In the course of his research, Otto Schäfer specialized in the field of control engineering, and in the winter semester of 1948/49 he gave a well-attended lecture on the basics of control engineering at the University of Frankfurt / Main. In the following years he intensified his activities in the field of control engineering.

In 1956 he took an active part in a conference in Heidelberg on the subject of "Control engineering - modern theories and their usability". He was responsible for the “Statistical Methods” part, and for this he made his own contribution “Application of the statistical approach in the investigation of transmission systems”, with which he also made it clear that this specialist area deserves his and the professional world's attention.

In the fall of 1957, Schäfer accepted a full professorship in control engineering and head of the newly created Institute for Control Engineering (IRT) at the Faculty of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering at the RWTH Aachen University . In 1961, the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering was split up, and Schäfer opted for the new Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and thus to be close to the users of control engineering.

In the years that followed, control engineering became a compulsory subject for a steadily growing number of courses in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering . Schäfer dedicated himself with particular devotion to teaching and training the next generation of scientists. During the 20 years of his professorship, more than 7,000 qualified engineers in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering went through his lectures and exams.

Schäfer, who in particular earned merits in the development of control engineering from a special discipline to one of the method-oriented core subjects of electrical engineering and mechanical engineering , retired in 1977 . Immediately afterwards , Heinrich Rake took over the management of the institute, after he was appointed Scientific Councilor and Professor of Systems Theory in 1971.

Schäfer had a high reputation in the professional world and numerous worldwide contacts. The latter also went back to the first founding institutes for control engineering in German-speaking countries: 1955 at the TH Dresden by Heinrich Kindler (1909–1985), in 1957 almost simultaneously at the TH Darmstadt by Winfried Oppelt (1912–1999) and at the RWTH Aachen by Otto Schäfer. 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 together with the VDI technical committee for control engineering in the "Memorandum for the foundation of an institute for control engineering" in 1941, but initially only his appointment to the first chair for Control engineering in Germany at the TH Berlin-Charlottenburg in October 1944 - the first institute to be founded remained open.

Otto Schäfer died in December 2000 at the age of 91 in Aachen.

Publications (selection)

  • About carrier frequency differential circuits for photoelectric receivers. Habilitation thesis . JA Barth, Leipzig 1938.
  • Basics of automatic regulation. Technischer Verlag Heinz Resch, Graefelfing 1953, 7th edition 1974.
  • With Udo Ossendoth: The control behavior of switching controllers with feedback - final report on research project No. 6676 Linear approximations for switching controllers with feedback. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1979, ISBN 3-531-02829-4 .
  • With Heinz Bültges: Controls with switching controllers in the event of stochastic disturbances. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1981, ISBN 3-531-03034-5 .

literature

  • Winfried Oppelt : Small manual of technical control processes. Verlag Chemie, Weinheim, 1st edition 1954; Verlag Chemie, Weinheim and Verlag Technik, Berlin, 5th edition 1972.
  • Herbert Schlitt : System theory for random processes - statistical methods for communications and control technology. Springer Verlag, Berlin / Göttingen / Heidelberg 1960.
  • Heinrich Kindler : Collection of exercises on control engineering. Verlag Technik Berlin, Oldenbourg-Verlag Munich / Vienna 1964 (with H. Buchta and H.-H. Wilfert).
  • Herbert Schlitt : Stochastic processes in linear and non-linear control loops. Vieweg Verlag, Braunschweig, Verlag Technik, Berlin 1968.
  • August Ludwig Degener, Walter Habel: Who is who? The German Who's Who , Volume 16. Arani, Berlin 1970, ISBN 3-7605-2007-3 , p. 1107.
  • Manfred Thoma : Theory of linear control systems - with 71 examples and 150 exercises. Vieweg, Braunschweig 1973, ISBN 3-528-04850-6 .
  • Karl Reinisch : Cybernetic basics and description of continuous systems . Verlag Technik, Berlin 1974.
  • Werner Schuder (Hrsg.): Kürschner's German learned calendar . Volume 3. 13th edition. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1980, ISBN 3-11-007434-6 , p. 3307.
  • Frank Dittmann: 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: Wiss. Journal TU Dresden , Vol. 44, No. 6, 1995, pp. 88-94.
  • Werner Kriesel , H. Rohr, A. Koch: History and future of measurement and automation technology. VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf 1995, ISBN 3-18-150047-X .
  • KH Fasol, R. Lauber; F. Mesch, H. Rake , M. Thoma , H. Töpfer : Great Names and the Early Days of Control in Germany. In: Automation technology , Munich, vol. 54, no. 9, 2006, pp. 462–472.
  • Norbert Gilson, Walter Kaiser: Electricity, energy, information - the history of the faculty for electrical engineering and information technology at RWTH Aachen. In: Volume 6 of Aachen contributions to the history of science and technology in the 20th century. Verlag for the history of natural sciences and technology, Diepholz 2010, ISBN 3-928186-89-2 , p. 201.
  • Werner Kriesel : 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, ISBN 978-3-631-66719-4 (print), E- ISBN 978-3-653-06277-9 (e-book).

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Shepherd, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German physicist, control engineer and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Offenbach am Main
DATE OF DEATH December 8, 2000
Place of death Aachen