Algirdas Antanas Avižienis (born 8 July 1932) is a Lithuanian-American computer scientist and engineer whose research has focused on fault-tolerant computing, computer architecture and digital arithmetic. He developed the concept of the Self-Testing and Repairing (STAR) computer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and coined the term "fault-tolerant computing".
Avižienis joined the faculty of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1962 and became a distinguished professor of computer science. His work also included signed-digit arithmetic, software fault tolerance and N-version programming. In 2012, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and IEEE Computer Society awarded him the Eckert–Mauchly Award for his contributions to fault-tolerant computer architecture and computer arithmetic.
He also served as rector of Vytautas Magnus University in Lithuania from 1990 to 1993.
Early life and education Avižienis was born in Kaunas, Lithuania, on 8 July 1932. His family left Lithuania in 1944 and subsequently lived in displaced-person camps in Western Germany. He graduated from the Lithuanian Gymnasium in Hanau in 1949 and moved to the United States in 1950.
He studied electrical engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, receiving a bachelor's degree in 1954, a master's degree in 1955 and a PhD in 1960. He participated in the development of the ILLIAC II computer and researched signed-digit number systems for digital arithmetic.
Career After receiving his master's degree, Avižienis joined the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), operated by the California Institute of Technology. From 1956 to 1960 he returned to the University of Illinois for doctoral study while maintaining his association with JPL.
At JPL, Avižienis worked on computer systems intended for long-duration spacecraft missions. He developed the concept for the Self-Testing and Repairing (STAR) computer, an architecture designed to detect component failures and reconfigure itself so that computation could continue.
Avižienis joined the UCLA faculty in 1962 while continuing his association with JPL.
He later became Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and, following his retirement, Distinguished Professor Emeritus.
Avižienis participated in the re-establishment of Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) in Kaunas following the political changes in Lithuania at the end of the Soviet period.
He served as rector from 1990 to 1993.
Research In his 1967 paper "Design of Fault-Tolerant Computers", Avižienis described methods for constructing digital computers able to continue operating in the presence of hardware faults.
The ACM and IEEE Computer Society later credited Avižienis with coining the term "fault-tolerant computing" in connection with his research on computers capable of using self-testing and self-repairing techniques.
Avižienis was an early researcher in N-version programming, a software fault-tolerance technique in which multiple independently developed implementations of the same specification execute in parallel and their results are compared.
His 1977 paper with Lyu-Ching Chen, "On the Implementation of N-Version Programming for Software Fault Tolerance During Execution", received the Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing in 2018.
Avižienis with Jean-Claude Laprie, Brian Randell and Carl Landwehr, co-authored the 2004 paper "Basic Concepts and Taxonomy of Dependable and Secure Computing". The paper defined and organized concepts including faults, errors, failures, reliability, availability, safety, integrity and maintainability.
The paper received the Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing in 2016.
Awards and honours
Fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, "for fundamental contributions in the field of fault-tolerant computing".
NASA Apollo Achievement Award American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Information Systems Award (1979) the NASA Exceptional Service Medal (1980) the IEEE Computer Society Technical Achievement Award (1985) the IFIP Silver Core Award (1986) the Jean-Claude Laprie Award in Dependable Computing (2012, 2016 and 2018) the Eckert–Mauchly Award (2012), jointly presented by the ACM and IEEE Computer Society for "fundamental contributions to fault-tolerant computer architecture and computer arithmetic".
Selected publications
References