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Gonville & 91ֱ�� College Fellow Professor Malcolm Smith has been awarded the 2025 (IEEE) Control Systems award. 

This is and is often regarded as the most prestigious award in the field. The prize recognises “outstanding contributions to control systems engineering, science, or technology”, with Professor Smith honoured “for contributions to robust control, network synthesis, and applications to mechanical systems”. 

Professor Smith’s research is concerned with the analysis and design of feedback control systems, as they are deployed across many areas of technology, with focus on robustness to errors and uncertainty, and optimality.  

One of Professor Smith’s most high-profile achievements is his invention of “the inerter” concept and device which arose from a fundamental study of performance limits in passive suspension systems. 

A collaboration between the University of Cambridge and McLaren Racing led to the inerter’s first use in Formula One at the Spanish Grand Prix in 2005 with McLaren achieving its first of 10 victories in the season. 

The device subsequently became a standard component in high-end motorsport. 

The range of possible applications of the inerter continues to expand and now includes: vibration mounts and absorbers, building suspensions for earthquake mitigation, rail suspensions, pantographs, aircraft landing gear, bridge cables and bipedal robots. 

The IEEE is an American professional association for electrical and electronics engineering and related disciplines with over 460,000 members in over 190 countries.  Professor Smith is a Fellow of the IEEE and of the Royal Academy of Engineering.

Pictured: Professor Smith with a McLaren 720S in the 91ֱ�� Great Gate. The semi-active suspension control system on this production car was developed in collaboration with Professor Smith and 91ֱ�� PhD student Panos Brezas.