Biography
Dr. James S. Albus founded and led the Intelligent Systems Division at the National Institute of Standards and Technology for 20 years. He is currently a Senior NIST Fellow. During the 1960's he designed electro-optical systems for more than 15 NASA spacecrafts. During the 1970's, he developed a model of the cerebellum that is still a leading theoretical model used by cerebellar neurophysiologists today. Based on that model, he invented the CMAC neural net, and co-invented the Real-time Control System (RCS). RCS is a reference model architecture for intelligent systems that has been used over the past 25 years for a number of systems, and the latest version of the RCS architecture has been selected by the Army for the Autonomous Navigation Systems to be used on all Future Combat System ground vehicles--manned and unmanned. He also invented the NIST RoboCrane. He is currently working with DARPA and other government agencies on a concept for a National Program for Understanding the Mind: "Decade of the Mind".
He is the author of more than 180 scientific papers, journal articles, book chapters, and official government studies on intelligent systems and robotics. He has lectured extensively throughout the world and authored or co-authored five books: Engineering of Mind, Intelligent Systems, The RCS Handbook, Brains, Behavior, and Robotics, and Peoples' Capitalism. He is a member of the editorial board of the Wiley Series on Intelligent Systems serves on the editorial boards of six journals related to intelligent systems and robotics.
He has received numerous awards for his work in control theory including the NIST Applied Research Award, the Department of Commerce Gold and Silver Medals, the Industrial Research IR-100 Award, the Presidential Rank Meritorious Executive, the Jacob Rabinow Award, the Japanese Industrial Robot Association R&D Award, and the Joseph F. Engelberger Award for robotics technology. In 1998, he was named a "Hero of Manufacturing" by Fortune magazine.
Dr. Albus received a B.S. in Physics from Wheaton College (Illinois) in 1957, a M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Ohio State University in 1958, and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from University of Maryland (College Park) in 1972.
