Honorary Member

Tatsuro TAKAHASHI

Professor Tatsuro Takahashi completed his master’s course in electrical engineering in Kyoto University in 1975 and joined the Musashino Electrical Communication Laboratory of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation (now, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT)). In 1983, he became a visiting researcher at Columbia University. He became leader of the ATM System Research Group, NTT Communication Switching Laboratories in 1990, director of the Broadband Network Systems Laboratory, NTT Network Service Systems Laboratories in 1997, and a general manager in the R&D Vision Group, Third Department, NTT in 1999. From 2000 through 2015, Professor Takahashi served as a professor at the Communications and Computer Engineering, Graduate School of Informatics, Kyoto University. He received his Ph.D. from Kyoto University in 1997.   He undertook R&D on a broad area of communication networks and switching systems, including space-division and time-division channel system, INS switching system and high-speed packet switching system, and demonstrated his expertise and leadership in international standardization forums. Through these activities, he has made remarkable contributions to the research and development and standardization of telecommunication technology. Particularly notable were his outstanding imagination and leadership in the early stages of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM), a technology that can efficiently handle low-speed media, such as telephony, and high-speed broadband media, such as video, in a consistent manner. He drove activities in vendors, both in Japan and overseas, and international standardization bodies to ensure growth of ATM technology, from the launching of the basic technology through technical verification and commercial development. Specifically, he proposed and ensured standardization of ATM communication procedure, which was the core technology of an ATM node system; invented and developed an ATM switch structure and traffic control technology based on a new concept; drove development of an ATM node system incorporating these core technologies; and verified the technologies through a variety of multimedia experiments, including the NTT Multimedia Usability Experiment and the Kansai BBCC Experiment. In addition, he led efforts to build a science information network that incorporated these technologies, and to introduce NTT’s super relay FR/CR network and call information network into commercial services. These technologies were widely used for commercial purposes in North America, Europe and Asia. They were also used for construction of the backbone networks for high-capacity inter-computer communication networks which were then in the stage of rapid development. These proved to be the driving force for the subsequent development of IP communication. Thus, his activities have had a significant influence on development of the telecommunication industry, both in Japan and internationally.   After moving to Kyoto University, Professor Takahashi led basic research into next-generation information network, such as an optical packet switch, and trained 11 doctoral students, 67 master’s degree students and 68 bachelor’s degree students (including 11 international students), all of whom went on to become outstanding professionals in the fields of electronics, information and communication.   For these achievements, he received the Minister of Science and Technology Award (1998), the Achievement Award (1996) and the Distinguished Achievement and Contributions Award (2011) from the IEICE; the Maejima Hisoka Award from the Communications Association (1997); and the ATM Forum Spotlight Award (1997). He was made a fellow by the IEICE (2003) and the IEEE (2005). He contributed to development of the IEICE by serving as chair of the Technical Committee on Network Systems (2001) and director of finance (2007).   As stated above, his contributions to the development of electronics, information and communication technologies through his activities in engineering societies, standardization organizations, enterprises and universities, both in Japan and overseas, have been truly outstanding. Accordingly, we hereby recommend that he be granted the status of a fellow, honorary member of the IEICE.