B.S. Physics (with honors), 1957
Wheaton College, Illinois
M.S. Electrical Engineering, 1958
Ohio State UniversityPh.D. Electrical Engineering, 1972
University of Maryland
May 4, 1935, Louisville, KY, USA
USA
June 2008 to present: Senior Fellow, Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Provide technical leadership for programs that advance understanding of the computational and representational mechanisms of the human brain.
December 1998 to May 2008: Senior NIST Fellow, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Provided technical leadership to the Intelligent Systems Division and served as Principal Investigator for the implementation of intelligent ground vehicle projects funded by the Army and DARPA.
June 1995 to December 1998:
Chief, Intelligent Systems Division, NIST.
Managed a Division of 35 professional scientists and engineers with an $8+ million
per year budget. Developed the 4D/RCS architecture for the Army Research Lab
(ARL) Demo III Experimental Unmanned Vehicle program.
Feburary 1981 to March
1996: Chief, Robot Systems Division, NIST.
Founded the Robot Systems Division, hired staff, acquired funding, developed
the RoboCrane, and many applications of the RCS architecture for DARPA, NASA,
ARL, U.S. Bureau of Mines, Ford, and General Motors.
June 1980 to January 1981: Leader, Programmable Automation Group, National Bureau of Standards (NBS.) Developed the RCS reference model architecture for the Automated Manufacturing Research Facility.
March 1973 to June 1980: Project Manager, Sensors and Computer Control Technology, NBS. Developed the Cerebellar Model Arithmetic Computer (CMAC) neural net model.
1969 to March 1973: Head, Cybernetics and Subsystems Development Section, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Developed a theory of cerebellar function that is still widely cited by researchers in cerebellar neurophysiology. Designed, built, and analyzed data from solar aspect sensors for more than 15 Earth satellites and a moon probe.
1963 to 1969: Acting
Head, Video Techniques Section, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Received a NASA work-study fellowship and began studying neurophysiology, brain
modeling, and artificial intelligence. Developed digital image compression hardware.
1958 to 1969: Physicist-Engineer,
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
Developed sensors for measuring the spin vector of a satellite relative to the
sun. Invented a digital solar aspect sensor, received a NASA invention award,
and a National Space Club Fellowship.
1957 to 1958: Physicist-Engineer, Project Vanguard, Naval Research Laboratory, Washington, DC. Designed antennas and antenna feed system for the Vanguard I Earth satellite. This satellite is still in orbit. A duplicate hung in the National Air and Space museum for 20 years.
Specific outstanding technical and professional accomplishments:
Dr. Albus is an internationally known leader in the theory and design of intelligent systems and their application to robotics and automation system. His contributions to both theory and application are numerous and substantial. Dr. Albus has produced significant technical results in seven important areas:
1) Brain theory: In 1971, he published a new theory of cerebellar function that modified and extended a previous theory published by David Marr in 1969.
Impact: What is now known as the Marr-Albus theory of the cerebellum is regularly cited in the neuroscience literature. It continues to inspire experimental activity by leading cerebellar neurophysiologists throughout the world. The Albus portion of the Marr-Albus theory has also proven an invaluable inspiration to the fields of neural nets, robotics, and intelligent machine systems.
2) Neural nets: Based on his cerebellar model, Albus invented a new type of neural net computer, the Cerebellar Model Articulation Controller (CMAC.)
Impact: CMAC was awarded an IR-100 award from Industrial Research Magazine as one of the 100 most important industrial innovations of the year 1976. Today, CMAC (a.k.a. Cerebellar Model Arithmetic Computer) continues to inspire research in neural networks. It has several significant advantages over more traditional neural net learning algorithms. It is orders of magnitude faster in learning non-linear functions than back-propagation, and is much faster in execution. This makes it particularly useful for applications related to real-time adaptive control. CMAC is the subject of many recent publications in the robotics and neural net literature
3) RoboCrane: Dr. Albus invented and developed a new generation of robot cranes based on six cables and six winches configured as a Stewart platform.
Impact: The NIST RoboCraneTM has the capacity to lift and precisely manipulate heavy loads over large volumes with fine control in all six degrees of freedom. Laboratory RoboCranes have demonstrated the ability to manipulate tools such as saws, grinders, and welding torches, and to lift and precisely position heavy objects such as steel beams and cast iron pipe. In 1992, the RoboCrane was selected by Construction Equipment magazine as one of the 100 most significant new products of the year for construction and related industries. It was also selected by Popular Science magazine for the "Best of What's New" award as one of the 100 top products, technologies, and scientific achievements of 1992.
A version of the RoboCrane has been commercially developed for the Air Force to enable rapid paint stripping, inspection, and repainting of very large military aircraft such as the C-5 Galaxy. RoboCrane is expected to save the Air Force $8 million annually at each of its maintenance facilities. This project was recognized in 2008 by a National Laboratories Award for technology transfer.
Potential future applications of the RoboCrane include ship building, construction of high rise buildings, highways, bridges, tunnels, and port facilities; cargo handling, ship-to-ship cargo transfer on the high seas, radioactive and toxic waste clean-up; and underwater applications such as salvage, drilling, cable maintenance, and undersea waste site management.
4) Reference Model Architecture for Intelligent Systems: Dr. Albus co-developed with Dr. Anthony Barbera a reference model architecture for intelligent systems that integrates concepts from artificial intelligence, machine vision, expert systems, modern control theory, operations research, differential games, and utility theory. It bridges the gap between symbolic and numeric computation, and integrates deliberative with reactive controllers. It facilitates software and hardware system design, development, and test, and makes possible the integration of software from a wide variety of sources. It provides a solid theoretical basis for open architecture standards and performance measures for intelligent systems software.
Impact: During the 1980's, the Albus-Barbera reference model architecture (a.k.a. RCS - for Real-time Control System) provided the fundamental integrating principle of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) Automated Manufacturing Research Facility (AMRF.) This was an $80 million experimental automated factory-of-the-future. It was co-funded by the U.S. Navy Manufacturing Technology Program and the National Bureau of Standards (NBS). The success of the AMRF was largely responsible for the Congressional Legislation that transformed NBS into NIST.
Over the past two decades, scientists and engineers at NIST, in other government agencies, in industry, and academia have applied the RCS reference model architecture to a wide variety of practical problems in manufacturing, construction, space telerobotics, unmanned undersea vehicles, unmanned ground vehicles, automated underground coal mining systems, control of nuclear submarines, postal service automation, and strategic missile defense. It has been used by engineers in a number of companies such as General Electric, Martin Marietta, Boeing, Hughes, General Motors, Lockheed, and many others for implementation of advanced control systems for robots, machine tools, and factory automation systems.
An RCS controller for an automated deburring and chamfering robotic system was developed in coordination with United Technologies and Pratt & Whitney for jet engine turbine blade manufacturing. The RCS reference model architecture was adopted by NASA as the NBS/NASA Standard Reference Model for Telerobot Control System Architecture (NASREM). NASREM was used by NASA and its prime contractor Martin Marietta for the space station flight telerobotic servicer. It was adopted by the European Space Agency for telerobotic control. A submarine operational automation system based on the RCS reference architecture was developed by General Dynamics Electric Boat Division for the Navy's next generation of nuclear submarines. The NIST-RCS architecture has been adopted by the U.S. Bureau of Mines for its coal mine automation program. The U.S. Postal Service has used RCS for automating a next generation general mail facility and an automated stamp distribution facility.
During the 1990's, Dr. Albus led a team of researchers in developing an open architecture Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) for intelligent machine tools and next generation inspection systems based on the RCS principles. The EMC was successfully tested and evaluated by shop personnel in a production prototype shop at General Motors Powertrain plant in Flint Michigan. Commercial controllers based on this version of the EMC have been developed and used by industry for water-jet cutters and machining cell controllers. Application Program Interface (API) specifications for open architecture controller standards have been developed in collaboration with an industry consortium consisting of developers, vendors, and users including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, Boeing, DOE, NIST, and a number of small companies. EMC software and documentation has also been made available to universities and is currently being incorporated into curriculum for university courses in advanced control systems.
The most recent version of the RCS reference model (4D/RCS) was developed for the highly successful Demo III Experimental Unmanned Vehicle program sponsored by the Army Research Laboratory (ARL). This program demonstrated that autonomous navigation of military ground vehicles under battlefield conditions is technically feasible. 4D/RCS has since been adopted by the Army for four major programs: 1) the Army Tank and Automotive Command (TACOM) Vetronics Technology Integration program, 2) the TACOM Road Follower program, ), 3) the ARL Robotics Collaborative Technology Alliance program, and 4) the Army Future Combat System Autonomous Navigation System (ANS.) The ANS is being manufactured by General Dynamics Robotic Systems. It is to be installed on all combat ground vehicles in the Army Future Combat System. 4D/RCS has also been applied to autonomous driving research programs funded by DARPA and the Federal Highway Administration.
5) Computational Theory of Mind: Dr. Albus has extended the 4D/RCS reference model to a Cognitive Architecture for Intelligent Multi-Agent Systems. This extended architecture is designed to enable any level of intelligent behavior, up to and including human levels of performance in driving vehicles and coordinating tactical behaviors between autonomous air, ground, and amphibious vehicle systems. It addresses the fundamental theoretical questions regarding whether computational processes are capable of emulating the functional processes in the brain, and provides a theoretical basis for understanding how the machinery of the brain generates the processes of the mind. Dr. Albus' recent work has led to a biologically plausible model of representation and computation in the human cortex.
Impact: The fundamental theoretical background was published in a book entitled Engineering of Mind, published by Wiley Science Series in 2001. The most significant results are very new. "A Computational Model of the Human Visual Cortex" was published this spring in Proceedings SPIE 08, Orlando, Fla. 2008. This is a biologically plausible model of how the brain solves the symbol-grounding problem. "Reverse Engineering the Human Brain" has been peer reviewed and accepted for publication in the AAAI 2008 Fall Symposium. This paper proposes a massively parallel computational architecture based on Cortical Computational Units (CCUs) that may enable us to finally build computers with capabilities for perception, cognition, and behavior that are comparable to those of the biological brain.
6) Peoples' Capitalism: Dr. Albus has been concerned for many years about the potential social impact of advanced intelligent systems. He is optimistic about the wealth producing capabilities of intelligent machines, but concerned about the elimination of jobs and the downward pressures advanced automation has on human wages and salaries. In 1976, he published a book entitled Peoples' Capitalism: The Economics of the Robot Revolution. In that book he lays out a plan to broaden capital ownership to the point where every citizen becomes a capitalist with a substantial income from personal ownership of capital assets. He maintains a web site http://www.PeoplesCapitalism.org where he outlines a practical plan to achieve a future economic system where income from ownership of capital assets supplements, and eventually supplants, wages and salaries as the primary source of income for the average citizen.
Impact: Actual impact has been slight. The economics establishment does not readily accept big ideas from outside the profession. However, the potential impact is huge. Economic models suggest that giving every citizen access to credit for investing in capital assets could eliminate poverty in a single generation. Providing every citizen an ownership share in the means of production would eventually usher in a golden age of prosperity and economic justice based on goods and services produced by intelligent machines and systems.
7) Decade of the Mind. Dr. Albus conceived of and promoted the idea of a $4 billion 10-year national program to understand the mechanisms of mind. This concept dubbed Decade of the Mind is modeled after the Human Genome project in structure and size.
Impact: Decade of the Mind has been formally adopted as a major thrust area by the Krasnow Institute for Advanced Studies at the George Mason University. Three Decade of the Mind workshops have been held and a fourth is scheduled at Sandia National Labs. The director of the Krasnow Institute has made many contacts on Capitol Hill, and prospects seem good that Decade of the Mind may become a funded program during the next administration.
1. Editorial board member for:
Wiley Series on Intelligent Systems - John Wiley & Sons
Journal of Autonomous Robots - Kluwer Academic Publishers
Journal of Robotics and Autonomous Systems - Elsevier
Journal of Robotic Systems - Wiley and Wiley InterScience
International Journal of Intelligent Control and Systems - World Scientific Publishing
Journal of Information Sciences - Elsevier, North-Holland
Journal of Intelligent Automation and Soft Computing - AutoSoft Press
2. IEEE Ad hoc committee
on Intelligent Control
3. NASA Study Group on Machine Intelligence and Robotics.
4. NASA Advisory Subcommittee for Research & Technology
5. Office of Technology Assessment Ad Hoc Committee on study social implications
of robotics and automated manufacturing.
6. Past member, Board of Directors, Robotics International of the Society of
Manufacturing Engineers.
1. Federal Laboratories
Tech Transfer for RoboCrane to Air Force maintenance operations, 2008
2. NIST Applied Research Award for RoboCrane research and applications, 2006
3. Information Science Award for theory and applications of intelligent systems,
2005
4. NIST Applied Research Award for advances in autonomous driving technology,
2002
5. Fortune Magazine "Hero of U.S. Manufacturing," 1997
6. Construction Equipment magazine 100 most significant new products for RoboCrane,
1992
7. Presidential Rank of Meritorious Executive award, October, 1990
8. Japanese Industrial Robot Association Research and Development award, September,
1990
9. NIST Applied Research award for a theory of intelligence and its application
to robotics, 1989
10. Department of Commerce Gold Medal Award for Distinguished Achievement in
Federal Service, 1986
11. Senior Executive Service Award for contributions to Automated Manufacturing
Research, l985
12. Engelberger Award for technology development of industrial robots (by King
of Sweden), l984
13. Department of Commerce selection for Senior Executive Service 1983
14. Industrial Research IR-100 Award for CMAC, 1976
15. Department of Commerce Silver Medal for CMAC, 1975
16. Washington Academy of Sciences Fellow, 1973
17. Goddard Space Flight Center Superior Achievement Award, 1970
18. National Space Club Hugh L. Dryden Memorial Fellowship, 1967
19. NASA Outstanding Invention Award, 1963