astronomy

John M. Hollerbach

John M. Hollerbach is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand John M. Hollerbach rather than just read about it. In short: John Matthew Hollerbach is a professor of computer science and research professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah. He is the editor of The International Journal of Robotics Research, a Senior Editor of Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, and a Governing Board member of the electronic journal Haptics-e.

Key takeaways

John M. Hollerbach belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect John M. Hollerbach to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of John M. Hollerbach from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

John Matthew Hollerbach is a professor of computer science and research professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Utah. He is the editor of The International Journal of Robotics Research, a Senior Editor of Presence: Teleoperators & Virtual Environments, and a Governing Board member of the electronic journal Haptics-e.

Early life and education Hollerbach was born in Marktheidenfeld, Germany to Hungarian refugees who met and married in a displacement camp. He and his family lived in a priest's attic in Germany for five years before emigrating to Detroit as refugees. He received his BS in chemistry in 1968 from the University of Michigan but was interested in the growing computer industry and spent an extra year taking computer science courses to receive an MS in mathematics. Following graduation, he worked at IBM as a chemist but took courses in artificial intelligence and computer science as part of an education program with Syracuse University. He then applied to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he worked with Patrick Winston in the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory on modeling solid objects and received his SM in computer vision in 1975. He continued at MIT in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science PhD program to study the acquisition of fine motor skills for use in robotics. He obtained special permission to have David Marr as his thesis advisor because Marr was a research scientist and not yet a faculty member at the time. As a result, Hollerbach was technically Marr's first student, although Shimon Ullman was the first student to graduate under him. Hollerbach received his PhD from MIT in 1978.

Career Following his PhD, Hollerbach continued at MIT as a research scientist in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory to work on theories of human movement and control and adapting these theories to robotics, and officially joined the faculty in 1982.

Year of the Robot In 1981 Hollerbach co-founded the Year of the Robot program at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory funded by the System Development Corporation and the Office of Naval Research with the goal of jump-starting serious research in robotics. During the 1970s robotics research was not considered a separate respectable scientific endeavor and was heavily oriented toward industrial robotics with limited vision in potential capabilities. The program aimed to rectify this by accelerating robotics research at MIT over a five-year period by supporting writing of a sourcebook on robotic manipulation, starting an annual high-level international academic conference and research journal, outlining an educational program, and building a dexterous and controllable robotic hand. In 1982, Hollerbach co-produced a robot motion sourcebook with J. Michael Brady, Matthew T. Mason, Tomas Lozano-Perez, and Timothy Johnson. The book contained sections on dynamics, trajectory planning, compliance and force control, feedback control, and spatial planning; each section had a substantial introduction that served as a tutorial in addition to research papers by 19 top robotics researchers, including Marc Raibert, Robin Popplestone, and Pat Ambler. An updated version of the sourcebook was published in 1989 edited by J. Michael Brady. In 1983, Hollerbach helped start the International Journal of Robotics Research and the International Symposium of Robotics Research.

Utah/MIT Dexterous Hand As part of the Year of Robotics program, Hollerbach collaborated with Stephen Jacobsen and John Wood at the University of Utah to design, construction, and control a multi-fingered hand. The project began in 1981 and was completed in 1987. The hand design consisted of a 16-joint four-finger manipulator that used 32 artificial tendons sensing via the Hall effect. 12 copies were made for use in a variety of contexts. At the NYU Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Ken Perlin, James Demmel, and Paul K. Wright obtained a copy to build simulation software for the hand. Carnegie Mellon University, Columbia University, University of Rochester and other university research labs obtained copies to explore multi-agent control, teleoperation, and apprenticeship learning.

Medical robotics In 1989 Hollerbach left MIT and accepted a NSERC/CIFAR Industrial Chair at McGill University. He hired Martin Buehler as a Junior Chair and formed a joint laboratory with Ian Hunter to work on fundamental actuator design. In 1994 Hunter moved to MIT to start a group in bioinstrumentation and Hollerbach joined the faculty at the University of Utah to develop medical robotics. At Utah, he developed the TreadPort Active Wind Tunnel, an immersive virtual environment that mimics the haptic properties of walking using sensory cues to aid in rehabilitation.

Awards 1984 National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award 1988 Fellow of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research 1996 Fellow of the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers 2012 IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award

Selected publications Hierarchical Shape Descriptions of Objects by Selection and Modification of Prototypes (Scientiæ Magister thesis), The Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA, AI-TR-346 of 1976. [The thesis offers (first) a theory of block-world descriptions focused on protrusions and indentations, and (second) a theory of generalized cylinder descriptions specialized to Greek vases.] Brady, Michael; Hollerbach, John M.; Johnson, Timothy L.; Mason, Matthew T.; Tomas, Lozano-Perez, eds. (1983). Robot Motion: Planning and Control. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0262021821.

References

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with John M. Hollerbach

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what John M. Hollerbach claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to John M. Hollerbach before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about John M. Hollerbach ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of John M. Hollerbach

In research: John M. Hollerbach appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses John M. Hollerbach in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: John M. Hollerbach is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Academic staff of McGill University, American academic journal editors, American roboticists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for John M. Hollerbach outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study John M. Hollerbach in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what John M. Hollerbach means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain John M. Hollerbach out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is John M. Hollerbach in simple terms?

Why does John M. Hollerbach matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study John M. Hollerbach?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on John M. Hollerbach.