Thomas B. Sheridan
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Thomas B. Sheridan is a professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is an American pioneer of robotics and remote control technology. Working at MIT, Sheridan developed important concepts concerning human-robot interaction, particularly regarding supervisory control and telepresence.
Robotics and telepresence is just one manifestation of his interest the boundary between human and automatic control. His book "Humans and Automation" is a concise summary of the history, issues, and progress in the role of the human and technology in automation.
[edit] Further reading
- T. B. Sheridan, "Telerobotics, Automation, and Human Supervisory Control," Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1992.
- Thomas B. Sheridan, "Humans and Automation: System Design and Research Issues",
John Wiley and Sons, 2002.
This part has been taken from his biography at the end of one of the most famous papers of him at the SMC Journal of IEEE in 2000:
Thomas B. Sheridan (M’60–SM’82–F’83–LF’96)received the B.S. degree from Purdue University,West Lafayette, IN, the MS degree from University of California, Los Angeles, the Sc.D. degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, and the Dr. (honorary) from Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. For most of his professional career he has remained at MIT, where he is currently Ford Professor of Engineering and Applied Psychology Emeritus in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, continuing to teach and serve as Director of the Human-Machine Systems Laboratory. He has also served as a visiting professor at University of California, Berkeley, Stanford, Delft University , Kassel University, Germany, and Ben Gurion University, Israel. His research interests are in experimentation, modeling, and design of human-machine systems in air, highway and rail transportation, space and undersea robotics, process control, arms control, telemedicine, and virtual reality. He has published over 200 technical papers in these areas. He is co-author of Man-Machine Systems (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1974, 1981; USSR, 1981), coeditor of Monitoring Behavior and Supervisory Control (New York: Plenum, 1976), author of Telerobotics, Automation, and Human Supervisory Control (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992), and co-editor of Perspectives on the Human Controller (Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1997). He is currently Senior Editor of the MIT Press journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments and serves on several editorial boards. He chaired the National Research Council’s Committee on Human Factors, and has served on numerous government and industrial advisory committees. He is principal of Thomas B. Sheridan and Associates, a consulting firm. Dr. Sheridan was President of the IEEE Systems, Man, and Cybernetics Society, Editor of IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MAN-MACHINE SYSTEMS, received their Norbert Wiener and Joseph Wohl awards, the IEEE Centennial Medal and Third Millennium Medal. He is also a Fellow of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, recipient of their Paul M. Fitts Award, and was President of HFES. He received the 1997 National Engineering Award of the Amer.ican Association of Engineering Societies and the 1997 Oldenburger Medal of ASME. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering.
