Viktor Kulebakin

Born Oct. 18 (30), 1891, in Moscow; died Feb. 11, 1970, in Moscow. Soviet scientist in electrical engineering, apparatus design, and automation. Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR (1939; corresponding member, 1933) and major general in the engineering and technical service (1942).

Kulebakin graduated from the Moscow Higher Technical School in 1914. Starting in 1917 he taught at a number of higher educational institutions, including the N. E. Zhukovskii Air Force Engineering Academy (1923-60) and the Moscow Higher Technical School (1971-40), where he became a professor in 1921. He took an active part in developing the GOELRO (the State Commission for the Electrification of Russia) plan, in founding the All-Union Institute of Electrical Engineering, and in setting up the Moscow Institute of Power Engineering. He was a founder and the first director (1939-41) of the Institute of Automation and Remote Control of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1960 he became head of the Committee for Scientific and Technical Terminology of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.

Kulebakin’s work on electrical equipment for aircraft gave impetus to the development of modern Soviet aviation electrical engineering. His principal works were devoted to the theory and the design methods of electrical machinery and apparatus, the problems of automated electric drive, the theory of automatic control, and the design of control devices. He received the State Prize of the USSR in 1950 and the P. N. lablochkov Prize of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1962. He was awarded two Orders of Lenin, seven other orders, and several medals.