R. D. Middlebrook

Robert David Middlebrook (May 16, 1929 - April 16, 2010) was a professor of electrical engineering at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). He is most well known in the field of power electronics and as a proponent of design-oriented circuit analysis.

He was born in England in 1929. He died in California on April 16, 2010.

He is regarded as one of the founders of the field of power electronics. He developed the state-space averaging method of analysis and other tools crucial to modern power electronics design.

He was highly regarded both as a researcher and a teacher. He founded the Power Electronics Group at Caltech. Many of his former students are leaders in the field of power electronics today, including Slobodan Ćuk, Vatche Vorperian, Dragan Maksimovic, Robert Erickson, and V. Ramanarayanan.

The IEEE Power Electronics Society has established the R. David Middlebrook award for "outstanding contribution in the technical field of power electronics" in his honor. Middlebrook was one of the founders of the IEEE Applied Power Electronics Conference (APEC).

Dr. Middlebrook was a leading proponent of "Design-Oriented Analysis" (D-OA) of electrical circuits, which is a circuit analysis technique that seeks to develop circuit equations that are simple yet physically insightful. He developed many of the tools of D-OA including the Extra element theorem and the General Feedback Theorem. His goal with D-OA was to fundamentally change the way electrical engineering is taught in order to focus on practical design rather than circuit analysis. Middlebrook advocated keeping circuit analysis and equations as simple as possible, only adding additional complexity when experiments show it to be necessary. Many engineers who have studied D-OA after a traditional electrical engineering education have asked why circuit analysis is not taught in school using Middlebrook's methods. A catchphrase familiar to Professor Middlebrooke's Caltech students is his dogged assertion of 'salient points' in the application of his D-OA methodology during instruction or in redline on graded (homework) assignments or tests.

He wrote several books including An Introduction to Junction Transistor Theory, which helped early electrical engineers devise practical applications for the transistor.

Dr. Middlebrook was a Life Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the IEE (UK). His technical recognitions include:

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