TRON Forum is pleased to announce that its chair, Ken Sakamura (IEEE Life Fellow/IEEE Computer Society Golden Core Member, Dean of Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation and Design (INIAD), Toyo University Director, YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory Professor Emeritus of the University of Tokyo, has been named the recipient of the 2023 IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award from IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), the world's largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity.
Professor Sakamura is being recognized for leadership in creating open and free operating systems for embedded computers in consumer electronics. His award presentation will be held at the IEEE 41st International Conference on Consumer Electronics being held on 6 January in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.
"This award is given for outstanding contributions in the field of consumer technology. It is a great honor not only for me but also for the project and its members to receive this award for our activities in releasing the specifications and implementation of a real-time OSs (RTOSs) to the public free of charge through TRON Project," Sakamura stated on this occasion.
Under Sakamura's leadership, TRON Forum will continue to provide, improve, and promote RTOSs, their development, and network environments that support them so that these can be used easily in consumer markets. The Forum would like to thank the members and partners for their past cooperation and continued support in future promotional activities.
November 22, 2022
About IEEE
IEEE, pronounced "Eye-triple-E," stands for the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. The organization is chartered under this name, and it is the full legal name.
- IEEE at a glance
IEEE is the world’s largest technical professional organization dedicated to advancing technology for the benefit of humanity. IEEE and its members inspire a global community through its highly cited publications, conferences, technology standards, and professional and educational activities.
(https://www.ieee.org/about/index.html)
About IEEE Awards
The IEEE Awards Program is a 100-year-old, peer-recognition program of achievement that has recognized leaders and visionaries who have paved the road of discovery in ways no one would ever imagine. IEEE Awards inspire achievement and set a standard of excellence and a motive to aspire to shape the future for the benefit of humanity, one innovation at a time.
The IEEE Awards Board (AB) administers the highest medals, awards, and recognitions presented by IEEE. Through its Awards Program, IEEE advances the interests of its members by recognizing major contributions in relevant fields for the benefit of society.
- IEEE-Level Awards
The IEEE Awards are approved by the Awards Board, and subsequently by the IEEE Board of Directors.
There are three levels of Awards: IEEE Medals, IEEE Technical Field Awards, and IEEE Recognitions. There are many awards in each level with different selection criteria and scope (for more details, see https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/corporate-awards/ ) - The IEEE Technical Field Awards (TFAs)
TFAs are bestowed for contributions or leadership in specific fields of interest of IEEE. IEEE TFAs are presented by the IEEE President or designee at an IEEE technical conference or symposium as recommended by the relevant selection committee.
For details, see: https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/corporate-awards/#field-awards
About IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award
As one of the IEEE Technical Field Awards, IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award is given to an individual or team of up to three for outstanding contributions in the field of consumer technology.
This award has been named after one of the founders of SONY Group Corporation, Dr. Masaru Ibuka. This award is given for contributions in the consumer electronics field. It was established in 1987 and has been awarded since 1989 to those who have made excellent contributions. The award consists of a bronze medal, certificate, and cash honorarium.
The IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award is sponsored by Sony Group Corporation.
- Basis for judging of IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award
In the evaluation process, the following criteria are considered: Technical innovation, creativity, quality, timeliness, societal benefit, technology enhancement associated with achievement(s), leadership and professional contributions of the individual(s) identifiable with the achievements, and the quality of the nomination. - Past Recipients of IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award
Recent past recipients of the IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award known for contributions to computer technology:2021 STEVE WOZNIAK, Public Speaker, Woz Speaks, Los Gatos, California, USA
“For pioneering the design of consumer-friendly personal computers.”
2020 EBEN UPTON, CEO, Raspberry Pi, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom
“For creating an inexpensive single-board computer and surrounding ecosystem for education and consumer applications.”
2018 LINUS BENEDICT TORVALDS, Fellow, Linux Foundation, San Francisco, California, USA
“For his leadership of the development and proliferation of Linux.“
See “IEEE Masaru Ibuka Consumer Technology Award” web page for more details.
https://corporate-awards.ieee.org/award/ieee-masaru-ibuka-consumer-technology-award/
The full list of past award recipients:
https://www.ieee.org/content/dam/ieee-org/ieee/web/org/about/awards/recipients/ibuka-rl.pdf
About TRON Project
TRON Project is a computer architecture development project by collaboration of industry and academia and started in 1984. Ken Sakamura (Dean of Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation And Design (INIAD), Toyo University / Director of YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory) is the project leader and the project has conducted research and development activities in RTOSs for embedded systems, their development environment, the IoT network and other topics.
The architecture, the achievement of this project, has been widely used in embedded systems in various industries ranging from consumer products such as automobile engine control, digital cameras, smartphones, etc., to industrial products including the machine control inside factories.TRON Project has proposed and promoted Open Architecture since its inception. TRON Project actively suggests standard specifications to international standardization associations such as ITU-T, ISO, and IEEE SA, and contributes to the international standardization of the infrastructure technology.
There is an NPO, TRON Forum that promotes the activities of TRON Project. For details of the project, please see its website.
https://www.tron.org/
Ken Sakamura Bio
Born in Tokyo in 1951, Ken Sakamura received a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Keio University, Japan in 1979, and subsequently became a research associate at the University of Tokyo then a professor and stayed there until he retired and moved to Toyo University. There he is now the Dean of Faculty of Information Networking for Innovation And Design (INIAD). He is currently also the director of YRP Ubiquitous Networking Laboratory (UNL for short), and the chair of TRON Forum and uID Center. He has been the leader of TRON Project since 1984, and has designed the TRON open computer system architecture which will be useful for ubiquitous computing of the future. Today, the real-time operating systems based on the TRON specifications are used for engine control on automobiles, mobile phones, digital cameras, and many other appliances, and are believed to be the among most popular operating systems for embedded computers around the world. The R&D results from TRON Project are useful for ubiquitous computing. For example, UNL joined the standardization efforts at ITU-T and helped produce a series of Recommendations, including H.642 “Multimedia information access triggered by tag-based identification.” The idea behind H.642 series is based on de facto “ucode” standard developed by UNL for communication in the age of the Internet of Things. For his achievements, Sakamura has won many awards: ITU 150 Award, Takeda Award, the Medal with Purple Ribbon from Japanese government, Okawa Prize, Prime Minister Award, and Japan Academy Prize. He is an IEEE fellow and the golden core member of the IEEE Computer Society.
About TRON Open Architecture
TRON Project has proposed and promoted Open Architecture since its inception. In its vision, computers based on open architecture will be embedded into many devices, and realize the IoT networking environment that supports our lives.
The results of TRON Project such as the whole source codes of TRON RTOSs including T-Kernel and μT-Kernel are published, and can be copied and modified.
About International Standardization by TRON Project
In addition to making open specification and open source code available, TRON Project actively suggests standard specification to international standardization associations such as ITU-T, ISO, and IEEE SA, and contributes to the international standardization of the infrastructure technology.
IEEE 2050-2018 - IEEE Standard for a Real-Time Operating System (RTOS) for Small-Scale Embedded Systems was based on the specification of μT-Kernel, an RTOS developed by TRON Forum. The latest version, μT-Kernel 3.0, conforms to IEEE 2050-2018 completely.
TRON Project has proposed an identification system, ucode, for identifying many devices and data in the IoT age, and a code system based on it has become ITU-T Recommendations. (Y.4804/H.642.1. The project has contributed to the standardization of related standards, ITU-T Y.4551/F.771, Y.4802/H.642.2.）
