Computational Intelligence - February 2015 - 7

Fuzzy Systems Pioneer Award

Dimitar Filev, Ford Motor Company,
USA
For contributions to the industrial applications of fuzzy systems.
Dr. Dimitar Filev
received his Ph.D.
degree in Electrical
Engineering from
the Czech Technical University in
Prague in 1979.
Since 1994 he has
been with Ford Motor Company where
he is presently Executive Technical Leader managing the Modern Control &
Computational Intelligence Department
at the Ford Research & Innovation Center in Dearborn, MI. Prior to that, he
was with the Machine Intelligence Institute, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY
(1991-1994) and with the Bulgarian
Academy of Science between 1980-
1991. He held visiting appointments at
Osaka University as a Fellow of the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science
(JSPS) in 1984, as a Visiting Researcher
at the Institute of Control Problems,
Soviet Academy of Sciences, Moscow, in
1987, and as an IREX Foundation Fellow at the Department of System Science, SUNY Binghamton in 1991.
Dr. Filev has published 2 research
monographs, 2 edited volumes, over
220 papers (with more than 8000 citations; H-index 34), and holds 96 US
patents (granted/pending) in automotive applications of intelligent control,
computational intelligence, and complex systems. Dr. Filev is a Fellow of the
IEEE and the IFSA (International
Fuzzy Systems Association). He is the
recipient of the 2008 Norbert Wiener
Award of the IEEE SMC Society and
the 2007 IFSA Technical Excellence
Award. His publications have been
awarded 3 times with Best Paper
Awards. Dr. Filev was awarded 6 times
with the highest Ford cor porate
award-the Henry Ford Technology
Award (in 1996, 1999, 2001, 2005,
2010, and 2013)-for development and
implementation of advanced automotive technologies with significant busi-

ness impact. He is also the first recipient
of the Ford Inaugural 2010 Haren Gandhi Research & Innovation Award for
long term impact on automotive R&D.
Dr. Filev's research interests and pioneering contribution are related to the
use of fuzzy rule based models and controllers as practical tools for dealing
with uncertainties and qualitative information in modeling & control, polytypic representation of dynamic TS models,
parameterized architecture of fuzzy systems enabling their structure and
parameter learning, development and
implementation of novel industrial process control systems utilizing fuzzy logic
for representation of heuristic control
and diagnostics strategies with applications to automotive manufacturing-
control of anticorrosion coating, control
paint film thickness, machine health
monitoring & diagnostics, weld control,
etc. Some of these early results are summarized in the research monograph
"Essentials of Fuzzy Modeling & Control" (co-authored with Ronald Yager
in 1994) which is one of the most frequently referred texts on fuzzy systems.
In the mid and late 90s Dr. Filev was
one of the first to initiate the novel
concept of Evolving Systems-dynamic
systems with real-time evolving
(expanding or shrinking) model structure that is capable of adjusting to the
changes in the objects. The idea was a
qualitative extension of Dr. Filev's long
term research on piecewise model representation of complex nonlinear systems with multiple operating modes
combined with real-time clustering and
parameter adaptation. The inspiration
for this research was his practical work
on process control applications in the
late 90s (first publications appeared in
1999). Applications of his lasting contributions to the evolving systems area can
be found in a number of current automotive engineering applications related
automotive manufacturing, vehicle system calibration and adaptation, driver
workload estimation, fuel economy
optimization, etc.
Dr. Filev is the co-EIC of the Int. J.
on Evolving Intelligent Systems
(Springer), and has served on the edito-

rial boards of the Journal of Automation,
Mobile Robotics and Intelligent Systems, Int. J. of General Systems, Int. J. of
Approximate Reasoning, IEEE Trans. on
Fuzzy Systems, Int. J. of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science, and Bioatomatica. Dr. Filev was the founder and
the General Co-Chair of the 2013 IEEE
Conference in Cybernetics (CYBCONF'13), Lausanne, Switzerland, the
founder and the General Co-Chair of
the 2006 IEEE Symposium on Evolving
Systems, and the General Chair of the
2005 NAFIPS Annual Conference, Program Chair of the FUZZ-IEEE Conference of the 2014 World Congress on
Computational Intelligence, Beijing,
Program Chair of the 2008 and 2010
IEEE CIS Symposia on Intelligent
Vehicular Systems. Dr. Filev served as
the President of the North American
Fuzzy Information Processing Society
(NAFIPS) 2006-2008,Vice-Chair of the
IEEE CIS TC on Fuzzy Systems 2007-
2009, VP of the IEEE SMC Society
2010-2014, and is presently PresidentElect of the IEEE SMC Society. Dr.
Filev has been a member of the IEEE
Fellow Committee since 2011.
In summary, Dr. Filev has made pioneering contributions to the theory of
fuzzy systems, computational intelligence, and intelligent control. He has
successfully applied his innovative ideas
and theoretical results to numerous
industrial applications, automotive product development, and manufacturing.
Evolutionary Computation
Pioneer Award

Thomas Bäck, Leiden University, THE
NETHERLANDS
For contributions in synthesizing evolutionary computation.
Thomas Bäck is
Professor for Natural Computing at
the Leiden Institute for Advanced
Computer Science
(LIACS) at Leiden
Univer sity, The
Netherlands, since 2002. Since 2007 he
is also Director of Education. Prior to

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