Biographies

Dr. James S. Albus
Senior NIST Fellow, Intelligent Systems Division, National Institute of Standards & Technology

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. Over a long and varied career Dr. Albus has made a number of scientific contributions. During the 1960’s he designed electro-optical systems for more than 15 NASA spacecraft. During the 1970’s, he developed a model of the cerebellum that after 30 years 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 including the NBS Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF), the NASA telerobotic servicer, a DARPA Multiple Autonomous Undersea Vehicle project, a nuclear Submarine Operational Automation System, a Post Office General Mail facility, a Bureau of Mines automated mining system, commercial open architecture machine tool controllers, and numerous advanced robotic projects, including the Army Research Lab Demo III Experimental Unmanned Ground vehicle. 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, both manned and unmanned. He is also the inventor of the NIST RoboCrane. He is currently working with the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies and various government agencies on a concept for a National Program for Understanding the Mind, a.k.a “Decade of the Mind.”

Dr. Albus 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 (twice), 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 is the author of more than 200 scientific papers, journal articles, book chapters, and official government studies on intelligent systems and robotics. He has lectured extensively throughout the world and authored, co-authored, or edited six books:
Intelligent Vehicle Systems: A 4D/RCS Approach – Nova Science Publishers, 2007
Engineering of Mind: An Introduction to the Science of Intelligent Systems – Wiley, 2001
Intelligent Systems: Architecture, Design, and Control - Wiley, 2002
The RCS Handbook: Tools for Real-Time Control Systems Software Development – Wiley, 2001
Brains, Behavior, and Robotics – Byte/McGraw-Hill, 1981
Peoples’ Capitalism: The Economics of the Robot Revolution – New World Books, 1976

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.

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.