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This is the 27th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries ...
This is the 27th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.
Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and international members, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.
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BY STEVEN BATTEL
ROBERT EUGENE SKELTON was one of the premier control-structure interaction experts in the world. His remarkable contributions extend to art, architecture, biology, physics, and medicine, as well as to bridges, telescopes, space structures, and ocean-wave energy conversion systems. A professor at Purdue, the University of California-San Diego, and then at Texas A&M, Bob passed away on Feb. 15, 2023, at the age of 84.
Bob was born in Elberton, Georgia, near Athens, known as the “granite capital” of the world. His parents were David and Sara and his siblings were Helen, Jimmy, Glenda, and Lynne. He received his bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Clemson University in 1963, his master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Alabama, Huntsville, in 1970, and his Ph.D. in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1976.
Bob started his career at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, where he worked on space system control problems related to Apollo, Skylab, the Space Shuttle, and the Hubble Space Telescope. Following his time at NASA, Bob became a professor of aeronautics and astronautics at Purdue, a position he held for 22 years. He then spent 10 years as a professor at the University of California, San Diego, founding the Dynamic Systems and Controls Group. His final stop was at Texas A&M beginning in 2015, where he was an eminent professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering. At every stop Bob was a beloved academic mentor, advisor, and teacher, exhibiting a thoughtful and humble research approach driven by his uniquely infectious scientific curiosity.
In his more than 50-year career, Bob advised more than 40 doctoral students and supervised more than 60 master’s theses. He published four books and more than 200 journal articles. He is now broadly recognized as the pioneering aerospace researcher in the field of tensegrity, representing a unique type of lightweight controllable structure. He founded and directed an internationally recognized interdisciplinary research group at UC San Diego, which worked across control, systems, robotics, and other discipline areas dedicated to the design, analysis, and control of tensegrity systems as well as other areas of advanced structure control systems.
Tensegrity was made famous by American sculptor Kenneth Snelson and architect Buckminster Fuller. Bob’s book Tensegrity Systems (Springer, 2009), co-authored with Maurício de Oliveira, provides the underpinning mathematical formalism to understand the statics and dynamics of tensegrity systems. Bob’s focus was specifically on the design, analysis, and control of tensegrity systems, a mathematically elegant yet practical research and design approach related to lightweight controllable structures for aerospace and other advanced engineering applications. His research was predicated on rigor, breadth, and collegiality, and these same exemplary attributes were reflected by his team and other people working with him. He was not just an inspired researcher but also a pioneering architect of novel mathematical ideas and design realizations for lightweight controllable mechanical structures. He was also an early leader in adopting an interdisciplinary approach to academic research in control theory and its applications. His remarkable success was based on creating bridges between control theory and other disciplines through the integration of their foundational underpinnings.
He served as a member of the following National Academies’ committees: the Ad Hoc Committee on NASA-Universities Relationships in Aero/Space Engineering (1984-85), the Aerospace Engineering Board (1982-87), and the NASA Technology Roadmap: Materials Panel (2011-12).
Bob received numerous awards across civil, electrical, aeronautical and astronautical, and mechanical engineering. He was a life fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (1995), a fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (1990), a fellow of the American Astronautical Society (2005), and a life member of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. His major awards include the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Mechanics and Control of Flight Award (2017), the SKYLAB Achievement Award from NASA (1974), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Award (1986), the Humboldt Foundation Senior U.S. Scientist Award (1991), the Norman Medal from the American Society of Civil Engineers (1999), the Humboldt Foundation Research Award (2011), and a NASA Appreciation Award (2005) for his service to the Hubble Space Telescope repair missions.
An avid outdoorsman, Bob was passionate about skiing, tennis, and hiking at locations all over the world. His legacy to all who knew him is one of brilliance, humility, inquisitiveness, thoughtfulness, and grace. He is survived by Judy, his wife of 51 years; sisters Glenda and Lynne; daughter Leigh; sons Jeff, Buzz, and David; daughters-in-law Jenny, Rachel, and Michele; nine grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.