Robotics group presents annual award

The Robotic Industries Association (RIA) announced the winners of the Engelberger Robotics Awards will be awarded to Dr. Gill Pratt from the Toyota Research Institute (TRI) and Dr. Daniela Rus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

By Robotic Industries Association (RIA) February 25, 2017

The Robotic Industries Association (RIA) announced the winners of the Engelberger Robotics Awards. The 2017 Engelberger Robotics Award will be awarded to Dr. Gill Pratt, chief executive officer of the Toyota Research Institute (TRI), and Dr. Daniela Rus, professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Pratt and Dr. Rus will be honored at a special ceremony held in conjunction with the Automate 2017 Exhibition and Conference and the International Symposium on Robotics.

The award is named for Joseph F. Engelberger, known throughout the world as the "father of robotics." Engelberger was the founder and president of Unimation, Inc., the world’s first industrial robot manufacturer. The Engelberger Robotics awards are presented to individuals for excellence in technology development, application, education and leadership in the robotics industry. Each winner receives a $5,000 honorarium and commemorative medallion with the inscription, "Contributing to the advancement of the science of robotics in the service of mankind." Since the award’s inception in 1977, it has been bestowed upon 124 robotics leaders from 17 different nations.

"Dr. Pratt and Dr. Rus are known throughout the world for their outstanding contributions to the robotics industry," said Jeff Burnstein, RIA president. "We are thrilled to honor them with the Engelberger Robotics Award."

2017 Engelberger Award Winners

Dr. Gill Pratt is renowned as a visionary and leader of initiatives that inspired a generation of researchers. As a professor at MIT, he developed series elastic actuators and techniques for controlling low impedance robots. As a program manager at the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Dr. Pratt led fundamental programs in neuromorphic computing and robotic mobility and manipulation, and initiated and led the international DARPA Robotics Challenge.

Dr. Daniela Rus is recognized for her leadership as a researcher, innovator and educator in the field of robotics. Her research group, the Distributed Robotics Lab, has developed modular and self-reconfiguring robots, systems of self-organizing robots, networks of robots and sensors for first-responders, mobile sensor networks, techniques for cooperative underwater robotics and new technology for desktop robotics. Dr. Rus is the first woman to serve as director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and its predecessors the AI Lab and the Lab for Computer Science. 

Robotic Industries Association (RIA)

www.robotics.org  

– Edited from an RIA press release by CFE Media. RIA is a not-for-profit trade association dedicated to improving the regional, national and global competitiveness of the North American manufacturing and service sectors through robotics and related automation. The RIA is a part of the Association for Advancing Automation (A3). A3 is a CFE Media content partner. See more Control Engineering robotics stories