During 1948-1949, shortly after completing his bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from New York University, Lawrence Fogel worked at Watson Laboratories (USAF) computing radiation patterns for VHF and UHF radio direction finders for use in ground-to-air operations.
During his time with Stavid Engineering, Inc. (New Jersey) between 1953 and 1956, he directed field operations of the Regulus Missile guidance system for submarines and also assisted with the design of flight instrumentation, communications, and electronics for aircraft and helicopters.
He published several articles intended to link communication theory and instrument design.,[1][2] These investigations led to other strategies to help with air traffic control, as this was similar to the information transfer of knowledge to humans that was experienced in the cockpit.
[4][5] He invented and patented a new display called the "Kinelog," which for the first time offered the pilot inter-sensory compatibility as a protection against the onset of vertigo.
While at the NSF, Fogel represented the Associate Director at technical and professional meetings related to the merit of individual research proposals or to the effect of national policies on future manpower and economic and military strength.
[8] While at NSF, Fogel's interest in cybernetics, biotechnology, and consciousness[9] led to a hypothesis that a simulation of evolution on computers could be used to generate artificial intelligence without the need for expert systems.
[11][12][13] These experiments validated the merit of the approach and this became the basis of Fogel's Ph.D. dissertation "On the Organization of Intellect" at the University of California, Los Angeles where he received the Ph.D. in 1964 in biotechnology with minors in mathematics and communication theory.
The dissertation became the basis of several papers[14][15] as well as the first book in the field of evolutionary computation Artificial Intelligence Through Simulated Evolution co-authored with Alvin Owens and Michael Walsh, also from Convair.
In 1965, Fogel left General Dynamics to form a new company, Decision Science, Inc. in San Diego, specifically for applications of evolutionary programming.
He served as President and directed research and real-world applications in the areas of information science, computer simulation, prediction, and systems control.
The methods were further developed through the efforts of Alvin Owens and George Burgin and formed the basis of a new generation of flight simulator first deployed at Langley Research Center for the purpose of air-to-air combat training.