Hendrik Wade Bode

Who was Hendrik Wade Bode?

Hendrik Alfred Bode was an American engineer, researcher, inventor, author and scientist, of Dutch ancestry. As a pioneer of modern control theory and electronic telecommunications he revolutionized both the content and methodology of his chosen fields of research.

He made important contributions to the design, guidance and control of anti-aircraft systems during World War II and continuing post-World War II during the Cold War with the design and control of missiles and anti-ballistic missiles.

He also made important contributions to control system theory and mathematical tools for the analysis of stability of linear systems, inventing Bode plots, gain margin and phase margin.

Bode was one of the great engineering philosophers of his era. Long respected in academic circles worldwide, he is also widely known to modern engineering students mainly for developing the asymptotic magnitude and phase plot that bears his name, the Bode plot.

His research contributions in particular were not only multidimensional but far reaching as well, extending as far as the U.S. space program.