51³Ô¹ÏÍø

David is truely a kind and humble gentleman, he is a fatherly figure to me. It was my privilege to be able work under his supervision and he had changed my life. His inspiration shall linger on and shall be my guiding light,

I am deeply sadden to hear this news. My deepest condolence to David's family. I first met David when I did my postdoc in the Control and Power Group at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College. David was a very dedicated researcher and a humble and kind person. He is a real great role model for us, especially for myself. It has been a privilege to have known him personally. I often tell my students about him, as a great scholar whom I admire and make as a example to follow. He will be greatly missed, but for sure, his legacy lives on. Thank you and may your soul rest in peace, David.

I remember signing up for "Advanced Control" with Prof D Q Mayne. I suppose I must have passed, although perhaps something less advanced would have suited me better. For some reason I can still hear him talking about the matrix return difference. He was a memorable character, although I drifted in other directions myself.

I am deeply saddened to learn of Professor Mayne’s passing. He was a kind and decent man who supervised my graduation project in 1984. I also had the privilege of taking his class on State Space Theory of Linear Systems. May he rest in peace.

So sad to know that a great man has passed on. May David Mayne's soul rest in peace. I quite remember my meeting him during my PhD programme where I learnt a lot from his publications on MPC and also had a lot of discussions with him. Like others have opined he was a gentle and kind man. Adieu David

David was my M.Phil. thesis supervisor in the 1960's. Always a considerate and properly analytical as a mentor. I will never forget him. RIP.

I had the privilege of briefly meeting Professor Mayne in the Control Systems lab at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø during the summer of 1990 while working on my MSc dissertation. He kindly introduced himself and inquired if I was pursuing the MSc course in Control Systems, asking whether I found the course challenging or manageable. Though he retired in 1989, we were fortunate to have access to his Multivariable Control notes, which proved to be incredibly helpful!

I worked as secretary for Professor Westcott in the Control Systems Group in the late 1960s and remember David Mayne as you all do - quiet, unassuming, modest, hard-working and really smart. He was required to complete his PhD for his tenure application, I believe, and I had the task of typing his thesis. He had the most illegible handwriting in the entire faculty, and was always amused that I seemed to be able to decipher it. His legacy is so impressive - a life truly well lived. RIP, DQ.

Only now do I hear (from the IFAC newsletter) the very sad news of David's passing three months ago. I first met David in the late 1970s in Berkeley, as I was working toward my PhD there and David was on one of his extended working visits to my research advisor Lucien Polak. I met him many times thereafter, often at conferences, once early on when I spent a few days at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College around 1980, together with my fellow grad student Bill Nye, in connection with the (interactive, optimization-based design) DELIGHT software developed by Bill. I can only echo words expressed by others on this website: David was a superb theoretician of optimization and control system design, and later on his foundational work on model-predictive control has had (and continues to have) enormous repercussion on control design practice. We are also losing a good friend and a first-class human being, always caring about others.

David Mayne has been a constant - and extremely benevolent - presence in my life for several decades. I first became aware of David while an undergraduate student of electrical engineering, when I chanced to hear about him and the book on differential dynamic programming which he had written with David Jacobson. Needless to say, on opening this book I made the humbling discovery that it was all vastly above my head. Nevertheless, it was that chastening experience - plus a reference which I had seen in the literature to the PhD thesis of one J.M.C. Clark of 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College (who would eventually end up as my academic supervisor) - which gave rise to a mix of vague hopes, dreams and plans involving control theory, 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College and David Mayne, and which finally led to an application to 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College as a Masters' student. And it was then that I found that somehow I had stumbled into a stupendously good decision, one of the very best of my entire life, for over the years David had created a truly outstanding scientific milieu at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College, absolutely second to none, and I was a most exceedingly fortunate beneficiary of that milieu. All the while, David was this gentle, soft-spoken, amazingly modest personality, never once mentioning or even hinting at his own truly exceptional contributions in differential dynamic programming, numerical optimization, optimization-based design, model predictive control (to name just a few). And finally there was the immense help which David gave me personally over the years, by way of of his incredible decency, generosity and liberality of spirit (not to mention the essential funding that he always seemed to have available). Without David the wonderfully satisfying career that I have been so fortunate to enjoy these last few decades in Canada would have been completely out of reach. My debt to him is truly immense. I will always remember David with the greatest respect, gratitude and affection.

I knew David since 1974. He was kind and very helpful. Last time I interacted with David was in December 2022 when I emailed him the information I had seen in an Automatica editors’ communication. He had three papers in the top 10 most cited ever and most downloaded lists. In fact, one of these was the very top one. He was very pleased to hear that.

David's legacy as one of the greatest scientists in systems and control will always be remembered. It is a privilege for us to be part of the same research group and department in which David belonged. In addition to his exceptional intellect, I will always remember David for his humble and kind-hearted nature.

David was the Head of Department who hired me as a lecturer, and thus had a profound impact on my life (since I've been in the department ever since!). I remember that meeting clearly. In the many years that followed he was a wonderful mentor and advisor, a role model, and a colleague of great warmth, patience and generosity. It was an honour and a priviledge to know David and to work with him.

An outstanding researcher and mentor, I first met David in 1970 when he became my PhD supervisor for my external PhD whilst working at the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Since then he has remained a friend and mentor and one of a very few Control academics that I regard as role models in my academic career. It was with great sadness that I heard of his passing. As will many others, I will miss him and our regular email exchanges.

I was very sad to hear that Prof. Mayne passed away recently. It took me some time to process the news and recollect my memories. I had a sporadic, but close professional relation with David. We first met when I was visiting Prof. Alessandro Astolfi at 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College in 2001. He was happy to hear that someone working on MPC was around and we had many insightful conversations. His papers are truly inspirational and groundbreaking. I would recommend anyone in the control field, especially starting researchers, to read David's papers "Suboptimal model predictive control (feasibility implies stability)", "An apologia for stabilising terminal conditions in model predictive control" and his two Automatica surveys on MPC. In 2007 we organized an invited session on MPC at the IFAC NOLCOS Symposium in South Africa, and David was very happy to get a possibility to visit his home country on that occasion. He wrote then an insightful paper that put the basis of tube MPC for nonlinear systems. David was a critical but supportive reviewer and a very kind and warm person. His presence gave us a feeling of stability and rigor in the MPC field. He will be dearly missed and his legacy to the control and MPC community will always be remembered. May he rest in peace.

David was a truly exceptional scholar who, in his long career, changed the landscape of control engineering. He would be a household name for his foundational work in model predictive control alone. But, as if that were not enough to assure leadership in the field, he made many other highly significant contributions, including ideas that prefigured modern day particle filtering techniques, decades ahead of their time. He was a visionary who, early on, foresaw future rapid advances in scientific computing and had the right computer-interactive control design strategies, all ready to go, as these advances occurred. His passion for research was unabated, almost till the end; he co-authored his last journal article in 2021, his curiosity undimmed, when he was ninety-one years old. The impact of his research on industrial practice has not been direct, but largely through the work of engineers who have taken used his methods in chemical processing, vehicle control and so many other areas. This impact has been huge. I know no more striking affirmation of the aphorism ‘there’s nothing so practical as good theory’. As a founder figure of modern control engineering and one of the ‘Great and the Good’, David was looked up to for his fairness in his professional dealings and putting ‘community’ before personal interest. His integrity earned him huge trust and affection. David was an intensely caring and empathetic person. His professional and personal worlds were seamless joined. Many of his long-term research collaborators became very close to David and his wife Jo. They were welcomed into David and Jo’s home and were holiday companions. His 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College colleagues in the Control and Power Group were felt particularly blessed, to have had David as mentor, inspiring fellow researcher and friend. We will miss him enormously.

The news of David Mayne's passing fills me with deep sadness. David was not only a highly esteemed champion in the field of MPC, making groundbreaking contributions throughout its history, but also a wonderful person. I will greatly miss his advice, our discussions about MPC and the world, his mentorship, and especially his warm presence. The control field has lost one of its giants, and we have all lost a dear friend and mentor. Thank you so much, David, for everything. We will miss you dearly.

I appreciate 51³Ô¹ÏÍø College colleagues informing me of the sad news of David's passing. I have had the privilege to know him since he offered me a lectureship in 1977 (which I unfortunately had to decline) and we met soon after when I started visits overseas and ended up a postdoc in Berkeley where he visited to work with Elijah Polak. Since then we met up on my visits to London and his to Newcastle where I enjoyed discussions and did some joint work with Rick Middleton and Graham Goodwin in adaptive control. I recall sitting beside him just before he was due to give a seminar in Newcastle and surprisingly said he said he was always a bit nervous before giving a seminar. This modesty was part of a humanity I saw over the years at least as large as David's seminal scholarship. We last met over lunch at IC for me to give him a very good bottle of Aussie wine after he wrote one last reference for me. Thankyou and rest in peace David.

David is one of the most influential researchers in the systems and control community. His pioneering and elegant work on MPC has inspired countless researchers, including myself—I am always a big fan. I still remember my only in-person chat with David after my interview. We are incredibly fortunate to have such a kind, humble, and wise individual as part of our group and community.

David was really a top scientist in our field and such a kind person to spend time with. I owe him a lot in ways that are too personal to even pen down. I often felt how lucky we were to still have him as part of our Department. His departure is a great loss but I still hope his legacy and example will long live among us.

David Q Mayne was not just a brilliant mind, he was a cornerstone in our academic community. A beacon of fairness, his unwavering commitment to justice ensured everyone had a voice. He championed not only his own ground breaking work, but also the achievements of his colleagues, showering them with recognition and respect. His inquisitive mind, forever seeking connections and new perspectives, fostering a spirit of collaboration long after his passing. David was also a bridge between disciplines. During the heady days of the 1970’s, of early speech recognition research, a topic arose: how to account for languages with unique features. With his roots in South Africa, David, raised the peculiarities of the language of Xhosa, a language rich with clicking sounds. "You mean like the Miriam Makeba's songs!" I exclaimed, referencing the legendary singer. His face lit up – not just because his point resonated, but because a young scholar (at that time) like me knew the music of his heritage. That moment encapsulated David’s spirit – a scholar who saw connections everywhere, a mentor who revelled in shared knowledge, and a friend who celebrated the richness of human culture. We've lost a true friend, a scholar of the highest order, and a guiding light. He will be profoundly missed.

Like every academic in our department , I knew he was a legend in his subject. Even decades after his retirement , the department proudly showcased his pioneering work on Model Predictive Control for REF case studies with highest score. Every time I met him in the corridor, he smiled and asked me about my health , this was particularly after I broke my leg. He had not taught me any control course , as retired and stopped teaching when I came to ICL for my PhD in 1996. Speaking to him, always I felt, very rarely we come across a person as wise as him and as humble as him.

I knew David in two very distinct part of my life: as a young boy, coming to visit my dad at work, when David was Head of Department, and much later as a colleague in EEE. What is common to both of these experiences is the warmth and friendliness David showed me, whether I was aged 9 or 49. He was genuinely excited when I started working with Eric Kerrigan and Jan Maciejowski on hardware applications of (and implications of) MPC, and we spent several sessions in the common room where he brilliantly analysed our work and absorbed it all. I will remember him always as a kind and deeply intelligent man.