 It was not until 1922, however, that a formal control law for what we now call PID or three-term control was first developed using theoretical analysis, by Russian American engineer Nicolas Minorsky.Minorsky was researching and designing automatic ship steering for the US Navy and based his analysis on observations of a helmsman.He noted the helmsman steered the ship based not only on the current course error but also on past error, as well as the current rate of change; this was then given a mathematical treatment by Minorsky.