Jacob Rabinow Award

In December 2002 three members of the Robotic Research team were awarded the "Jacob Rabinow Applied Research Award for world leading research and development in robotic perception, planning and control and its application to unmanned ground vehicles" by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Jacob Rabinow held 230 U.S. patents on a very wide variety of mechancial, optical, and electrical devices. Among these were mechanisms for the automatic regulation of clocks and watches, the former used in all American automobiles, the automatic letter-sorting machine used by the U.S. Post Office, the magnetic particle clutch, formerly used in several European automobiles, now used in Subarus, airplanes, servo-mechanisms, and in a great many other machines, the world's first magnetic disc memory, the "best-match" principle in optical and magnetic character reading machines, many safety mechanisms for ordnance devices, and the straight-line phonograph. His patents could be classed under such diverse arts as photography, computer equipment and card punching and sorting equipment.

For more information on Jacob Rabinow:

http://museum.nist.gov/panels/notched/longbio.htm

http://web.mit.edu/invent/a-winners/a-rabinow.html

http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/rabinow.html