Mogens Blanke (S'73-M'77-SM'85) was born in 1947 in Copenhagen, Denmark. He received the M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in automatic control from the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) in 1974 and 1982, respectively.
He was a systems analyst at the European Space Agency in the Netherlands during 1975-76, then Assistant and later Associate Professor of Control Engineering at DTU from 1976 to 1985. He was head of the Marine Division of the Automation Company Søren T. Lyngs
$\hbox{\o}$ A/S from 1985 until 1990, where his main activities included total ship integrated control and diesel engine control. He has been Professor of Control Systems at Aalborg University, Aalborg, Denmark, since 1990, where he started the research group in autonomous systems and fault-tolerant control. The group's most visible achievement was the autonomous attitude control system for the first Danish satellite, which has been in orbit since early 1999. His research interests include identification and control of continuous, nonlinear systems, estimation and fault detection, and design methods for fault-tolerant control. His personal application interests include spacecraft attitude control, automatic steering and rudder-roll damping for ships, and control systems for ship propulsion. He is active in the International Federation of Automatic Control (IFAC). He initiated the IFAC Working Group on Marine Systems in 1986, chaired this and the later technical committees, and is presently a member of the IFAC Council.Prof. Blanke received the Radio Parts Award in 1985, the Esso Price in 1986 and, jointly with the satellite control team in Aalborg, the Aalborg City Springtime Award in 1999.