in Engineering Physics (1957) and PhD in Automatic Control and Mathematics (1960) from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) in Stockholm, where he also taught from 1955 to 1960 while working on inertial guidance for the Swedish National Defence Research Institute.
After his return he led efforts in the computer control of paper manufacturing machinery.
In 1965, Åström was named chair of the newly founded Department of Automatic Control at Lund University, Sweden.
From 1965 to 1999 he was chair of the Department of Automatic Control at Lund University, where he is now professor emeritus.
In 1987 he was also awarded the degree Docteur Honoris Causa from l'Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble.