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This is the 28th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy...
This is the 28th volume of Memorial Tributes compiled by the National Academy of Engineering as a personal remembrance of the lives and outstanding achievements of its members and international members. These volumes are intended to stand as an enduring record of the many contributions of engineers and engineering to the benefit of humankind. In most cases, the authors of the tributes are contemporaries or colleagues who had personal knowledge of the interests and the engineering accomplishments of the deceased. Through its members and international members, the Academy carries out the responsibilities for which it was established in 1964.
Under the charter of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering was formed as a parallel organization of outstanding engineers. Members are elected on the basis of significant contributions to engineering theory and practice and to the literature of engineering or on the basis of demonstrated unusual accomplishments in the pioneering of new and developing fields of technology. The National Academies share a responsibility to advise the federal government on matters of science and technology. The expertise and credibility that the National Academy of Engineering brings to that task stem directly from the abilities, interests, and achievements of our members and international members, our colleagues and friends, whose special gifts we remember in this book.
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BY MARC BALLON AND YANNIS C. YORTSOS
ARISTIDES ADELINO GUALBERTO REQUICHA, a pioneer in solid modeling and spatial reasoning for industrial applications whose later research on nanorobots transformed the field, passed away on Dec. 30, 2023, at age 84. Requicha was the Gordon Marshall Professor Emeritus of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) Viterbi School of Engineering.
An internationally respected scholar and member of the National Academy of Engineering, Ari received numerous honors during his illustrious career. He was the inaugural recipient of the Pierre Bézier Award at the 2007 Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Solid and Physical Modeling Symposium and received the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Robotics and Automation Society’s Pioneer in Robotics and Automation Award in 2008 for “pioneering contributions to research and education in solid modeling and programmable automation at the macro and nano scales.” He was also awarded the IEEE Nanotechnology Council’s Distinguished Service Award in 2010 and the USC Faculty Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017.
Ari served as the president of the IEEE Nanotechnology Council from 2014 to 2015 and was editor-in-chief of the IEEE Transactions on Nanotechnology from 2007 to 2010. He was a fellow of the IEEE, the ACM, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and the Solid Modeling Association (SMA). In the 1980s and the 1990s, he was among the most highly cited computer science researchers in the world, according to the ISI Web of Knowledge.
The solid modeling technology Requicha helped develop replaced traditional drafting and manual techniques as the standard for capturing object geometry in computer graphics and industrial computer-aided design and manufacturing. This shift significantly increased productivity and reduced costs.
“Ari was so respected as a scholar because of the quality of his research,” said Gerard Medioni (NAE 2023), professor emeritus of computer science and chair of USC Viterbi’s computer science department from 2001 to 2007. “The first part of his career was about constructive solid geometry, which is a fundamental way of representing a 3D shape, including the notion of error and tolerance, so you can actually build something.” Medioni added, “But then he looked to the future, and the future for him was nanotechnology. Ari came up with this notion of robotics for nanotechnology and really started a new field.”
By introducing the “revolutionary” idea of robotic manipulation at the nanoscale, Ari laid the foundation for what USC Viterbi Dean Yannis C. Yortsos (NAE 2008) called “an active area of research and innovation with applications that can help advance bioengineering, as well as enhance chemical manipulations.”
Requicha was born on March 18, 1939, in Monte Estoril, Portugal. He earned a degree in electrical engineering from the Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from the University of Rochester in 1970. Over his career, he served as a physics lecturer at the University of Lisbon, lieutenant in the Portuguese Air Force, and a research scientist at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s SACLANT Research Center in La Spezia, Italy.
Before joining USC in 1986, he spent 13 years at the University of Rochester, where he served as director of the Production Automation Project (PAP), a research initiative known for advancing both the theory and practice of geometric modeling.
Upon joining USC, he founded the Programmable Automation Laboratory (PAL), focused on computational geometry, robotics, and artificial intelligence, with an emphasis on their applications in intelligent systems for electromechanical design and manufacturing. In 1994, he launched the Laboratory for Molecular Robotics (LMR), which later merged with PAL in 2003. As director of LMR until 2009, he helped catalyze a new frontier in nanotechnology: robotic manipulation at the nanoscale. Initially the lab focused on manipulating molecular-sized components using scanning probe microscopes (SPMs), but its research scope expanded over time to cover many areas in nanorobotics. Projects included building nanosensors, nanoactuators, and other components for the nanoscale robots of the future; programming and coordinating large numbers of nanorobots; and exploring algorithms for self-assembling and self-repairing distributed systems composed of many nanorobots.
“I wish my junior colleagues could have someone like Ari around as they go through the process of maturing in their roles,” said Maja Matarić (NAE 2025), Chan Soon-Shiong Chair and Distinguished Professor of Computer Science and Neuroscience, who first met Ari in 1997 when she joined USC Viterbi. “It was a gift to have Ari as an iconoclastic, energetic, supportive, and, to anybody who tried to constrain him, challenging figure in the department. He was a great role model.”
A passionate soccer fan fluent in Portuguese, French, Italian, and English, Requicha had no children.