Dr. Kinji Mori is Professor and Chair, Department of Computer Science, and Professor of Department of Management of Technology, Tokyo Institute of Technology. He obtained Ph.D. from Waseda University (Tokyo, Japan) in 1974. Before joining Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1997, he was a researcher of Hitachi, Ltd.

 

Dr. Mori made fundamental contributions to the field of reliable and maintainable distributed computer systems.  In 1977, he created the architecture concept called Autonomous Decentralized System (ADS), which emphasizes on-line property of on-line expansion, on-line maintenance and fault tolerance.  Using the ADS concept, he then produced several fundamental computer system technologies, in particular, the Data Field architecture that is a highly cost-effective technological approach to structuring highly reliable, maintainable, and expandable distributed computer systems.

 

These technologies are so basic, innovative and widely applicable for numerous computer products and large-scale industrial application systems.  For example, the Japanese Bullet train and Tokyo Metropolitan railway information and control systems, the Suica IC-Card system of Japan Railway for passengers pass and digit-cash, Kawasaki steel production system, and many other industrial automation systems, which are among the largest industrial facilities in the world, were constructed by use of the ADS based computing and network components.   Moreover, Hitachi Company produced numerous computer models targeted for industrial automation and on-line transaction processing markets on the basis of the ADS concept and the data field technology.  The sales volume of the ADS in Hitachi is now over US$5,000,000,000. Dr. Mori holds over 350 patents recognized internationally.

 

Infrastructures such as transportation, electric power, water supply, etc. have been rapidly changing from supplying the fundamental necessities of life to improving the quality of life. Moreover, for the next generation infrastructure system, it is crucial to integrate control and information systems. The conventional systems have focused primarily to the majority users under the standardized lifestyle, and then the technologies to achieve reliability, efficiency, quality, and so on have been developed. Nowadays the lifestyles of users have been diversified and their requirements are dynamic and heterogeneous. Therefore, it is difficult to predict their requirements.  Even under these unpredictable situations, the system has to keep up the services for the users and to sustain the providers business. Under these circumstances, the firm concept of system is essential and thereafter its technologies and applications can be developed.  

  Autonomous Decentralized System Concept has been proposed by the analogy of the evolving living thing with growth, metabolism and evolution. This concept and its technologies have been developed and nicely applied in the new generation train system.