Historic

On 1 January 1955, the Institute for Control Engineering (from 1968 the scientific area of control engineering and process control) was founded at the then Dresden University of Technology as the first university institution of its kind in the German-speaking world under the direction of Prof. Dr. phil. Dr.-Ing. E.h. Heinrich Kindler, who chaired the institute until his retirement in 1975. In 1978, Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Heinz Töpfer took over as head of the scientific department. In the course of the re-establishment of the faculties at the Technical University of Dresden in 1990, the institute was also provisionally re-established under the name Institute for Automation Technology. After the Saxon Higher Education Act came into force in 1994, the professorships of Automation Technology, Process Control Engineering and Discrete Control Systems of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering merged to form the Institute of Automation Technology, and in 1995 Prof. Dr. techn. Klaus Janschek also took over the management of the Institute when he took over the professorship of Automation Technology. The professorship of Discrete Control Systems was taken over after Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Ernst Habiger's retirement in 1997. The professorship of Process Control Systems was headed until 2005 by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Peter Rieger, who was succeeded in 2006 by Prof. Dr.-Ing. habil. Leon Urbas has been in charge of this professorship since 2006. In April 2020, Prof. Urbas also took over as head of the institute after Prof. Janschek's retirement, while Prof. Janschek will continue as senior professor in the automation technology professorship until a successor is appointed.