January-2015 * Sofia, Bulgaria

It is with great pain and sorrow that we inform you about the unexpected decease of Blagovest Shishkov at the age of 77. Our memory of him as a respected person as well as a great scientist will remain vivid. Blagovest initiated the ICTRS conference and used to be its spiritual father.

An inspiring person of a brilliant mind, he also always impressed with his honesty and modesty. Always devoted to his family, he was a loving husband and a caring, wonderful father of two sons. He was a great friend and an excellent team-mate.

Blagovest's work on Telecommunications was remarkable, marked by impressive achievements and career. Graduating with honors secondary school in his home town - Topolovgrad, situated in South Bulgaria, he moved to Sofia to study Electrical Engineering at the Technical University. He got his MSc in 1961. This was followed by inspiring research activities related to noise detection, at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Electronics. In 1974 Blagovest earned a Doctorate (PhD) in Physics (exploring the noise processes in receiving visual information) and in 1991 he got his D.Sc. degree in Telecommunications (exploring the optimal statistical synthesis of information systems within a-priori undetermination). From 1994, Blagovest was Full Professor of Applied Mathematics at the Technical University of Sofia and after his retirement in 2003, he was Emeritus Full Professor of Statistical Signal Processing at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics.

Blagovest published over 100 scientific and professional articles and several books, many of which touching upon signals transmission (signals, filtering, and detection) and especially asymptotic methods in parameter estimation, signal detection and identification, pattern recognition and data quantization. His last work was related to signal processing of cyclostationary signals and detecting and studying of nonlinear wave interactions by using higher-order statistics. Both areas have been successfully incorporated into adaptive antenna beamforming and analysis of time series associated with space data. Some of his last research was devoted to mathematical modeling and optimization of the sidelobe level of large antenna arrays toward SPS/MPT applications. He created a variety of algorithms applicable to telecommunications, radar, remote sensing systems, space research, biomedical systems, and so on. Asymptotic algorithms for detection and estimation of weak signals on a background of noise are to be especially mentioned as well, together with new algorithms in adaptive antennas and space data analysis.

Blagovest used to be President of URSI - Bulgaria, the inspirer of ARSIT (the Association on Radio Systems and Intelligent Telecommunications), and a respected contributor to a number of prestigious scientific conferences, appearing in different roles including: Chair, Keynote Speaker, Invited Speaker, Program Committee Member, and Contributor. Furthermore, he successfully realized more than 10 research visits at prestigious academic institutions in France, Japan, Spain, and Russia, and made substantial contribution to on-going research in Japan, touching upon the utilization of solar power. Blagovest used to be member of IEEE, EURASIP, and IEICE (Japan).

He was an entertaining and erudite companion, a keen chess enthusiast, an excellent violin-player, and a hearty performer of opera arias.

He will be missed by everybody who had the privilege of knowing him.


- For more information on Blagovest, please click here
- In Memory of my Dad