John O’Reilly

Hi-Fi enthusiasts read here, Dynamical Systems aficionados scroll down: The author is neither a manufacturer nor a retailer of Hi-Fi products. An electrical engineer by profession, the author brings a lifelong passion in music and its satisfactory reproduction to bear upon the most basic of questions. Is Hi-Fi for you? This fundamental question has never been answered. Until now. The author's considerable love of music, and experience of using high-fidelity systems, is marshalled to this end. Satisfactory sound reproduction of your favourite music at low cost is easier than you think; high-fidelity sound reproduction while retaining good value is a lot harder than it might appear. For Dynamical Systems aficionados: John O'Reilly is Emeritus Professor of Engineering at the University of Glasgow, UK. One of the greatest engineers of his generation, Professor O'Reilly quickly rose to international standing in a number of areas of control theory: observers, parametric eigenstructure assignment, singular perturbation methods, and coordinated decentralised control. The last area of coordinated decentralised control, developed after a year of 'wood-shedding' on industrial practice amid numerous discussions with the Strathclyde Professor of Design, saw the final move to power systems and power electronics. Damping and synchronising torque experts may demur but Professor O'Reilly lays claim to the only complete explanation as to how a power system stabiliser, a control device, actually works. A past Editor of the International Journal of Control, Dr O'Reilly was once rebuked by his Head of Department for publishing too much. His final oeuvre is thankfully modest by today's dizzyingly high levels of publication. The latter part of his career saw much collaboration with leading European companies in the power system, aerospace and automotive sectors. Professor O'Reilly owes a great debt of gratitude to colleagues, co-workers and students in many lands over many decades in diverse engineering fields. Earlier academic positions at Queen's University Belfast, Liverpool and Strathclyde have been formative. Professor O'Reilly has also enjoyed fruitful study visits to the Universities of Illinois, Notre-Dame, Stanford, Santa Barbara and Canterbury New Zealand.