Katsuhiko Sakaue

Also known as 坂上勝彦

Katsuhiko Sakaue is a computer vision researcher and an Emeritus Researcher at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST). Trained in electronics at the University of Tokyo, he joined the Electrotechnical Laboratory in 1981, co-wrote the SPIDER image-processing package and won the 1986 IPSJ Best Paper Award for a system that automatically generated image-processing programs. In the 1990s, he led the multimodal human-interface area of Japan's Real World Computing project. At AIST, he directed the Information Technology Research Institute from 2004 and, with Yutaka Satoh, fitted an electric wheelchair with an omnidirectional stereo camera system that detects dangers around it. The International Association for Pattern Recognition named him a Fellow in 2006, and IEICE did the same in 2009.

Now at: National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology
Works: 120
Citations: 865
h-index: 13
Badges: Loyal

Publication numbers from OpenAlex, as of 22 October 2026.

Timeline

1971–1981

Electronics at the University of Tokyo

He studies electronics at the University of Tokyo from 1971 and continues there through master's and doctoral programs that end in 1981. Under Mikio Takagi, he writes a Dr.Eng. thesis on image segmentation by an iterative method; an application of it to separating overlapping particles wins him the IEICE Young Researchers' Award in 1980.
1980–1986

SPIDER and image expert systems

One of six authors of SPIDER, a transportable image-processing software package released in 1980 and sold internationally, he joins the Electrotechnical Laboratory in April 1981. Seeing the selection and combination of SPIDER subroutines as knowledge engineering, he turns to expert systems for image processing. His paper with Hideyuki Tamura on automatically generating image-processing programs wins the IPSJ Best Paper Award in 1986.
1990s

The Real World Computing project

In the 1990s, he is a core member of Japan's Real World Computing project, a 10-year national project started in 1992, and leads its multimodal human-interface area. The project's multimodal interaction system of 1995, to which he contributes directly, draws wide media coverage. At ETL, he also develops the learning image-understanding system MIRACLE-IV and the Active Net model, and from 1997 to 2002 he works on adaptive vision systems.
2001–2004

Ubiquitous and wearable vision

In April 2001, he becomes a principal research scientist at AIST's Intelligent Systems Research Institute, where his work extends vision technology to ubiquitous and wearable computing, including a 2001 paper on real-time camera parameter estimation for 3-D annotation on a wearable vision system. With Ikushi Yoda and Daisuke Hosotani, he coauthors an ACCV 2004 paper on ubiquitous stereo vision for safety on railroad station platforms.
2004–2005

Director of AIST's IT institute

In 2004, he becomes director of AIST's new Information Technology Research Institute, which combines the Information Processing Research Institute, the Cyber Assist Research Center and part of the Intelligent Systems Research Institute. With Mikio Takagi, he co-chairs the 9th IAPR Conference on Machine Vision Applications, held in Tsukuba Science City in May 2005.
2004–2006

An intelligent electric wheelchair

From 2004 through 2006, he develops intelligent electric wheelchairs with the National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities. With Yutaka Satoh, he fits a wheelchair with the Stereo Omni-directional System, a camera system that captures all-around color images and distance information in real time to detect and avoid dangers. Their paper on the system wins the ViEW2006 best paper award in December 2006.
2006–2009

IAPR and IEICE fellowships

The International Association for Pattern Recognition elects him a Fellow in 2006 for contributions to computer vision and its applications. In November 2009, IEICE names him a Fellow for advanced research on image processing and its real-world applications.
Since 2014

Emeritus researcher at AIST

From April 2009 to March 2014, he directs TACC/ICI at AIST, and from 1999 to 2014 he is an adjunct professor at the University of Tsukuba's Graduate School of Systems and Information Engineering. Since April 2014, he is an Emeritus Researcher at AIST.