Charles Rosen, robotics pioneer, dies at 85 Charles Rosen, robotics pioneer, dies at 85 (December 25, 2002)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

Charles Abraham Rosen of Atherton -- a pioneer in artificial intelligence and robotics, and co-founder of Ridge Vineyards -- died in his sleep at home December 8 after a long illness. It was the day after his 85th birthday.

It was Dr. Rosen and his team at SRI in 1966 that built "Shakey," the first robot that could "see" the world, plan a course of action, monitor its execution, and recover from mistakes. "It was a first. It didn't do anything practical, but it was an important scientific advance," says Nils Nilsson of Ladera, who was hired by Dr. Rosen, headed SRI's prestigious artificial intelligence lab, and went on the direct the Computer Science Department at Stanford.

Even today, anyone who drives a car with a route-finding system like MapQuest, owes the original program to Dr. Rosen and his SRI team, Dr. Nilsson notes.

Family, friends and colleagues describe Dr. Rosen as visionary, knowledgeable, interested in everything, adventurous, responsible, imaginative, kind, loyal, and "utterly fearless."

"He was my most important mentor," says longtime colleague Peter Hart of Menlo Park, who started working for and with Dr. Rosen at SRI in the early 1960s. "He was an unmatched combination of knowledge, creativity, and humanity."

"Charlie" Rosen was raised by his mother in the "red light" district of Montreal. He and a friend set up his first electronics laboratory above his mother's candy store, where they built crystal radios from odds and ends.

After graduating from high school, Charlie moved to the United States where he waited tables in the Catskills to support his mother. There he met Blanche Jacobson, and married her in 1941. She died last June.

Dr. Rosen earned a degree in electrical engineering from Cooper Union in 1940, and spent the war in Canada, where he supervised a group testing Canadian fighter planes before they were sent to battle in Britain.

After the war, Dr. Rosen worked for General Electric Research Laboratories in Schenectady, where he managed a solid state electronics group that studied transistors, co-authored the first textbook on transistor devices, and earned a Ph.D.

In 1957, the Rosens moved to California, and Dr. Rosen began developing programs in micro-electronics, artificial intelligence, and robotics at then-Stanford Research Institute in Menlo Park.

It was in 1959 that Dr. Rosen, and the late Dave Bennion, also of SRI, independently found the same 80-acre parcel planted with some old cabernet grapes on Monte Bello Ridge. Soon SRI colleagues Rosen, Bennion, and Hew Crane of Portola Valley, and their wives, bought the land. Ridge Vineyards was born.

For 27 years, the three families spent weekends shoveling and planting, as they converted their tired acres into one of California's premier small wineries. Their picking, crushing, and bottling parties became legend. "Charlie was the leader. He was the glue that kept them together," says Sue Crane.

After Shakey, Dr. Rosen became more interested in applying the new robotic technologies in industry. He headed a new Industrial Automation Laboratory at SRI, and co-founded Machine Intelligence Corp. with Dr. Hart and others. "He was one of the main people responsible for getting robots and machine vision into factories," says Dr. Hart.

After "retiring" in 1979, Dr. Rosen served on hoards of directors of more than 10 companies, and started several others. These included a company to make home pickling kits. Just two years ago and disabled by emphysema, Dr. Rosen founded a successful pharmaceutical-delivery company.

Dr. Rosen was active up to the very end. The day before he died, he recorded a tape explaining new ideas about expanding artificial intelligence, says his son Hal Rosen. "He was an optimist right to the end."

Dr. Rosen is survived by sons Hal of Los Gatos and Steve of San Francisco; daughters Naomi of Sebastopol and Sema of Burlingame; and five grandchildren.

The family plans to hold a memorial early next year.

Donations may be made to REACH, 136, N. San Mateo Drive, Suite 101, San Mateo, CA 94401."