John O. Limb is an Australian engineer, known for fundamental contributions to the development of digital video communications and holder of a series of patents related to computer communications.

Early life and education

Born in

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

, he received a

Bachelor of Electrical Engineering Bachelor of Electrical Engineering (B.E.E. or BEE) is an undergraduate academic degree offered to a student who completes three to five years of study in electrical engineering at a university or college. There are many institutes offering ''Bache ...

(B.E.E.) (1963) and a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

on the thesis ''Vision Oriented Coding of Visual Signal'' (1967), both from the

University of Western Australia University of Western Australia (UWA) is a public research university in the Australian state of Western Australia. The university's main campus is in Crawley, Western Australia, Crawley, a suburb in the City of Perth local government area. UW ...

. See section "Emeritus/Part Time Faculty", Prof. John Limb. Limb studied the human vision's role in the encoding of picture, partially under the direction of Dr. Albert Seyler and Professor Zig Budrikis.

Career

He worked as researcher at the

Postmaster-General's Department The Postmaster-General's Department (PMG) was a department of the Australian federal government, established at Federation in 1901, whose responsibilities included the provision of postal and telegraphic services throughout Australia. It was ...

's research laboratory in

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

(1966–67) before moving to

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

where he joined

Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, commonly referred to as ''Bell Labs'', is an American industrial research and development company owned by Finnish technology company Nokia. With headquarters located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, Murray Hill, New Jersey, the compa ...

(1967), being manager of the department for visual communications research (1971–78) leading to patents. He then led the research department for distributed computer systems (1978–84) before going to

Bellcore iconectiv supplies communications providers with network planning and management services. The company’s cloud-based information as a service network and operations management and numbering solutions span trusted communications, digital identi ...

research where Limb was in charge of developing the new research division for communications sciences (1984–86) where he among other projects, developed

medium access control In IEEE 802 LAN/MAN standards, the medium access control (MAC), also called media access control, is the layer that controls the hardware responsible for interaction with the wired (electrical or optical) or wireless transmission medium. The ...

protocols for

local area network A local area network (LAN) is a computer network that interconnects computers within a limited area such as a residence, campus, or building, and has its network equipment and interconnects locally managed. LANs facilitate the distribution of da ...

s. Later he joined

Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, Californi ...

as director of laboratories in

Bristol, England Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

(1986–89), for the technology analysis group at

Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose, California, San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ...

(1989) and for the media technology group (1992–94). Distributed Computer Systems Research Department where the emphasis was on office information systems and local/metropolitan area networks. Recently, he has worked on

optical communication Optical communication, also known as optical telecommunication, is communication at a distance using light to carry information. It can be performed visually or by using electronic devices. The earliest basic forms of optical communication date ...

systems at

Broadcom Broadcom Inc. is an American multinational corporation, multinational designer, developer, manufacturer, and global supplier of a wide range of semiconductor and infrastructure software products. Broadcom's product offerings serve the data cen ...

, working at

Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

. He has held visiting professorships at the

Technical University of Hannover Leibniz University Hannover (), also known as the University of Hannover, is a public research university located in Hanover, Germany. Founded on 2 May 1831 as Higher Vocational School, the university has undergone six periods of renaming, its ...

(1975), the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

(1983), and the

University of Essex The University of Essex is a public university, public research university in Essex, England. Established by royal charter in 1965, it is one of the original plate glass university, plate glass universities. The university comprises three camp ...

(1985–86). Limb started at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology (commonly referred to as Georgia Tech, GT, and simply Tech or the Institute) is a public university, public research university and Institute of technology (United States), institute of technology in Atlanta, ...

in 1994 as a

Georgia Research Alliance The Georgia Research Alliance is an Atlanta, Georgia-based nonprofit organization that coordinates research efforts between Georgia's public and private sectors. While the GRA receives a state appropriation for investment in university-based researc ...

Eminent Scholar in Advanced Telecommunications. He joined the faculty staff of both the Networking & Telecommunications Group in the College of Computing, and the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the

College of Engineering Engineering education is the activity of teaching knowledge and principles to the professional practice of engineering. It includes an initial education ( Dip.Eng.)and (B.Eng.) or ( M.Eng.), and any advanced education and specializations tha ...

. He created the Georgia Tech Broadband Telecommunications Center in 1995.

Publications

*''Advances in

s'' (

IEEE The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) organization, 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE ...

press, 1987)

Awards and honors

*1978

IEEE Fellow , the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and ot ...

*1973

IEEE Communications Society The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is an American 501(c)(3) public charity professional organization for electrical engineering, electronics engineering, and other related disciplines. The IEEE has a corporate office i ...

"Leonard G. Abraham Prize" for best paper in the field of communications systems *1982

IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award The IEEE Donald G. Fink Prize Paper Award was established in 1979 by the board of directors of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in honor of Donald G. Fink. He was a past president of the Institute of Radio Engineers (IR ...

for the best review paper published in the Proceedings of the IEEE in 1980 *1991

IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal The IEEE Alexander Graham Bell Medal is an award honoring ''"exceptional contributions to communications and networking sciences and engineering"'' in the field of telecommunications. The medal is one of the highest honors awarded by the Instit ...

, along with

C. Chapin Cutler Cassius Chapin Cutler (December 16, 1914 – December 1, 2002) was an American electrical engineer at Bell Labs. His notable achievements include the invention of the corrugated waveguide and differential pulse-code modulation (DPCM). Biog ...

and

Arun N. Netravali Arun N. Netravali (born 26 May 1945) is an Indian–American computer engineer credited with contributions in digital technology including HDTV. He conducted research in digital compression, signal processing and other fields. Netravali was the ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Limb, John O. Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Australian scientists American people of Australian descent Australian electrical engineers Scientists at Bell Labs University of Western Australia alumni Georgia Tech faculty Fellows of the IEEE