Ramachandran Balasubramanian was born in 1942 in Periakulam, Tamil Nadu, India. He had an outstanding academic career starting at the University of Madras where he passed the BE examination in Electrical Engineering with distinction, securing first rank. He was awarded a ME from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, specialising in control engineering, and a PhD in the same field from the University of New Brunswick in 1968. He joined the faculty of the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of New Brunswick in 1969, and served as a full Professor from 1979 until his untimely death in the Air India plane crash in June 1985.

Professor Balasubramanian taught at the University of New Brunswick on control engineering post-graduate courses and also on power systems, communications and general systems theory. He published over 50 papers on various control engineering and power topics, although his major interests were in nonlinear multivariate and stochastic control.

He served as Director of Graduate Studies and Research in the Department of Electrical Engineering between 1978 and '81. His broad knowledge was also evident in his work as a consultant, in which position he advised on satellite altitude control to the Communications Research Centre, Ottawa, on power systems to the New Brunswick Power Commission and on myoelectric control to the Bio-engineering Institute of the University. In 1983 he delivered a series of lectures in the People's Republic of China. It was while preparing for these lectures that he felt the need for a text covering the topics of this book.