Branislava Peruničić

Branislava Peruničić-Draženović is an emeritus professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Sarajevo, at the Department of Automation and Electronics, and a regular member of the Academy of Sciences and Arts of Bosnia and Herzegovina.   She graduated from elementary school in Belgrade, high school in Kraljevo, and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade in 1960. In 1969, she defended the title of doctoral candidate in technical sciences at the Moscow Energy Institute. She defended her doctoral dissertation in 1971 at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo.   Since 1962, she has been working at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo. In 1966, she was elected as an assistant professor, then in 1972, as an associate professor, and in 1976, she was elected as a full professor at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Sarajevo.   Along with her career as a professor, she was a research associate of the Institute of Research and Development Center (IRCA) of Energoinvest, and an associate of the Institute of Computer and Information Systems (IRIS) of Energoinvest. Until 1992, she was the president of the Computerization Council of Energoinvest, a member of the Publishing Council of Svjetlost and a delegate of the Council of Academies of the SFRY in the science commission.   In the period from 1992 to 1998, she lived in the United States of America, where she held the position of visiting researcher at Texas A&M University until the end of 1992, and then visiting professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana, and from 1993 until 1998, she was a full professor at Lamar University in Texas. In 1998, she returned to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering at the University of Sarajevo.   As a visiting researcher, she stayed at Texas A&M University in Texas and Grand Valley State University in Michigan, while as a visiting academic she worked at the following USA universities: University of Illinois at Urbana, Lamar University and University of Kentucky in Louisville. She was elected a corresponding member of ANUBiH in 1987, and a full member in 2002. She held the position of vice president of ANUBiH from 2008 to 2011.   During her academic career at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo, she conceived and introduced numerous subjects and used original assessment and teaching methods. She was vice dean for science and president of the management board of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Sarajevo. She supervised 14 PhDs and numerous Masters of Science graduates. Many of them are now professors abroad, and three are members of academies of sciences around the world.   She founded the Bosnia and Herzegovina branch of the international organization of electrical and electronics engineers IEEE, which significantly helped students to connect with colleagues from around the world, and faculties in Bosnia and Herzegovina to organize scientific conferences recognized in international scientific circles.   Branislava Peruničić, together with researchers from IRCA Energoinvest and the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo: S. Zimonjić, B. Matić and Z. Pašić, between 1963 and 1967, carried out specialist studies at the Institute for Management Problems of the USSR Academy of Sciences in the group of prof. Yemeljjanova, working on the problem of stability, robustness and generalization of systems with a variable structure in the state space. Her contribution to the development of variable-structure systems with sliding regimes can be presented through four key results: (1) she created a methodology for control synthesis in multivariable systems, (2) she derived an expression for equivalent control in sliding regimes, (3) she found the condition that the movement in the sliding mode is independent of disturbances acting on the system, which is known by its name "Drazenovic's invariance condition" or "matching condition"; (4) introduced a new type of variable structure system with digital sliding modes together with her PhD student Č. Milosavljević.   During her career, she published a large number of scientific articles on the properties and use of sliding regimes, of which the work 𝗗𝗿𝗮𝘇𝗲𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗶𝗰, 𝗕. (𝟭𝟵𝟲𝟵). 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝘃𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘂𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺𝘀. 𝗔𝘂𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮, 𝟱(𝟯), 𝟮𝟴𝟳-𝟮𝟵𝟱. was the first paper in the field of sliding regimes published in English with a 1300+ citations.   The fruits of cooperation between IRCA Energoinvest, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the University of Sarajevo and the Institute for Management Problems of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR resulted in doctoral dissertations by A. Šabanović, M. Vujović, A. Salihbegović, F. Bilalović, O. Mušić, N. Šabanović-Behlilović, N. Hadžimejlić, Z. Bučevac and others In the field of energy.   Through her research work at IRCA Energoinvest and Texas A&M University, USA, she introduced the method of bilinear forms for calculating power, reactive power, current and voltage amplitudes, and measuring frequency in the power system network based on current and voltage samples. She developed a new method for determining the location of a transmission line fault using current and voltage patterns. Also, she introduced a method for analyzing events in the power system network using neural networks. The association CIGRE BH committee awarded her an award for lifetime contribution.   It is also worth noting that during her work at Energinvest, she participated in the development of the first process control system in the Balkans, leading a group that constructed two electromechanical components of the system. Before that, she worked on the development of software for the management and planning of the operation of power systems, where she created an algorithm for calculating the flow of power and coordinating the operation of hydropower plants and thermal power plants. Her bibliography with 3165 citations is adorned with: 4 published books, 5 chapters in books/monographs, over 50 papers in magazines and journals, and more than 150 conference papers.    In 2024, she was recognized for her lifelong contributions with the 6th April award from the city of Sarajevo, beating famous artist Zdravko Colic.