History of the faculty

Since 1992 up to the present

Due to 1992 organisational change in the Faculty, a new unit Process Automation came into being, soon to be re-named The Department of Process Automation. The teaching staff of the old Process Control in Mining Unit and Process Control in Metallurgy Unit, together with already existing laboratories helped the Department to get off the ground. The person who came up with the fusion idea was Professor Lucjan Kruszecki, who became also the first Head of the new Unit. In his organisational work he was helped by Zenon Jędrzykiewicz, a reader (associate professor – US). At present Professor Janusz Kowal holds the chair of the Department.

For many years the research in process control was conducted in Mechanical Engineering field of study. However, since 1997 this activity has been developed again in Automatics and Robotics. Currently, there are four specializations realised in this field of study (all of them are M.Sc. courses):

  1. Automatics and Metrology
  2. Robotics
  3. Automatics in Transportation Systems
  4. Automatics in Machine Systems in Mining

1968

Between 1968-69  Process Control in Mining Unit was established in The Institute of Mining and Processing Machines and Automatics. The head of the new unit was Professor Lucjan Kruszecki. On the basis of this unit  Prof. Kruszecki created a specialization of Automatic Control Engineering in Mining, later transformed into Automatics and Metrology.

Since then the Process Control in Mining Unit and Process Control in Metallurgy Unit together conducted the above mentioned specialization, which could be subdivided into two following specializations:

  1. Automatic Control Engineering in Metallurgy
  2. Automatic Control Engineering in Mining

1961

In 1961, under Professor Wiesław Zapałowicz’s direction,  the Process Control in Metallurgy Unit was set up in the Department of Metallurgy Machines. Soon afterwards, on his initiative, a new specialization of Process Control in Metallurgy was formed. Very quickly the new specialization was changed into Automatics and Metrology. In 1969 the Unit was renamed The Process Control.