| Yoshiaki Shirai |
A consistent thread running through Dr. Shirai's entire career is his fascination with computer vision. He was first to develop a distance information input device, and again was first in 1970 to achieve visual feedback combining object recognition and manipulation, for which he received the Best Paper Award from the Pattern Recognition Society in 1973. In 1971, working under Marvin Minsky at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory in the U.S., Dr. Shirai explored polyhedron recognition based on a more robust non-hierarchal scheme than the conventional hierarchical pattern recognition, and this work was published in the prestigious Artificial Intelligence Journal, the first time that an article by a Japanese author was published in that journal.
Back in Japan, Dr. Shirai continued his investigation of image-based object recognition while pursuing large projects involving data processing systems. He developed an input device for distance information based on slit-ray projection, and succeeded for the first time in recognizing objects from distance data. He was awarded the IEICE's Best Paper Award in 1982 for a thesis detailing recognition of multiple curved objects from descriptions of 3D scenes. Subsequently, Dr. Shirai was poised to start a new major project to develop an advanced robot for hazardous conditions when he was called to serve as a member of the Research and Development Liaison Council and as primary leader in charge of research and development at the laboratory just as the project got underway.
Since transitioning to academia, Dr. Shirai's work has focused on developing robots with highly reliable stereo vision, the ability to understand outdoor scenes using color, video processing, sensor fusion, human interface, and vision. He has received numerous awards and commendations for his well-written technical papers including Best Paper Award in 1992 from IROS '92 (hosted by the IEEE Industrial Electronics and Robotics Society of Japan) for his work on recognizing 3D outdoor scenes from recognition of a single color image, Best Paper Award from the IEICE in 1994 for research on video image processing using color and motion data, Honorable Mention from the Japan Computer Graphics Association in 1995 for his paper estimating the 3D motion of the human hand from images, and others. Dr. Shirai has been named Fellow by the International Pattern Recognition Association (IAPR), the Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), and received the Order of the Sacred Treasure in 2012.
Dr. Shirai has also contributed extensively to the IEICE through his commentaries, discussion of future prospects, reports, and other articles for IEICE journals and transactions, through his service as a member and secretary of the Pattern Recognition and Learning Research Technical Committee, as chairman and advisor of the Pattern Recognition and Analysis Research Technical Committee, as Editor-in-Chief of IEICE English Journals and Transactions D, as Director of the Fellows and Masters Future Technology Timing Research Technical Committee, and as President of the IEICE Board Information and System Society.
Dr. Shirai's public service to the tech community of Japan is well attested by his involvement in academic and government organizations: he served as Chairman of the the Japanese Society for Artificial Intelligence (JSAI), Vice Chairman of the Robotics Society of Japan (RSJ), Director of the Information Processing Society of Japan (IPSJ), member of the Expert Committee on the Science Council of the Ministry of Education, associate member of the Science Council of Japan (SCJ), member of the steering committee for Special Coordination Funds for the Promotion of Science and Technology of the Ministry of Education Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), member of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science 21st Century COE Program and Global COE Program Technical Committee, member of the National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation, member of the Academic Degree Accreditation Committee, and other affiliations.
He has also taken a keen interest in international activities and served in many key positions in global organizations including Vice Chair of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Japan representative on the board of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, editor of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, Program Chair of the 1st International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) sponsored by the IEEE, Executive Chairman of the International Conference on Computer Vision (ICCV), General Chair of the Asian Conference on Computer Vision (ACCV) sponsored by the IEICE Pattern Recognition and Media Understanding Research Technical Committee, Vice Chair of the International Association for Pattern Recognition (IAPR), and many other posts.
Dr. Shirai has thus been a powerful driving force and a pioneer in Japan over many years in the areas of computer vision, image processing, pattern recognition and understanding, and artificial intelligence for years. Thanks in large part to the remarkable advances made in these areas, robotic vision and other key technologies are now approaching practical fruition. For his outstanding contributions in the development and deployment of electronic, information and communications technologies as outlined above, we hardily endorse Dr. Yoshiaki Shirai is a worthy recipient of the IEICE Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award.
