Company Overview

Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) is the North American subsidiary of the corporate research and development organization of the Mitsubishi Electric Corporation (MELCO). We conduct application-motivated basic research and advanced development in computer and communication technologies.

    MERL's mission – our assignment from MELCO – is twofold:
    1. To generate highly significant intellectual property (papers, patents and prototypes) in areas of importance to MELCO.
    2. To locate organizations within MELCO that can benefit from this technology and through close partnership with them, significantly impact MELCO's business.
    MERL's vision – our goal for ourselves – is also twofold:
    1. To be one of the world's premiere research laboratories, significantly advancing the frontiers of technology and making lasting impacts on the world.
    2. Within our areas of expertise, to be the prime source of new technology for MELCO.
    MERL focuses on five principal technology sectors:
    1. Digital Communications - featuring wired and wireless transmission technology and networking.
    2. Multimedia - featuring speech interfaces and the encoding, decoding and analysis of video.
    3. Data & Sensor Systems - featuring HCI, data analysis and equipment condition monitoring.
    4. Imaging - featuring computer vision algorithms and the observation of people in images.
    5. Mechatronics - featuring advanced simulation and control of factory automation systems.

    These five sectors are supported by an Algorithms group, which works with all the sectors on fundamental algorithms.

    MERL is small enough to be agile and flexible in the dynamic marketplace of ideas. However, we gain leverage from the size, recognition and diversity of our strong global parent. We turn our technical achievements into business successes by partnering with MELCO's business units and with other labs in MELCO's global R&D network.

    We are strongly involved in the R&D community and standards activities, maintaining long-standing cooperative relationships with a number of research universities including MIT, CMU, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Columbia, Tufts, the University of Toronto, and ETH Zurich. We encourage our staff to be involved in their professional communities via conferences, papers and continuing professional development.

    MERL's output ranges from papers and patents, through proof-of-concept hardware and software prototypes, to modules for industry-first products. The headquarters operation includes a small marketing and business development department to help assess the potential market impact of our work and an in-house patent department to speed the filing of patents.