Distinguished Professor Peter Corke

PhD (The University of Melbourne)

I am a distinguished professor of robotic vision at QUT and director of the Australian Centre for Robotic Vision.  I wrote the textbook Robotics, Vision & Control, authored the MATLAB toolboxes for Robotics and Machine Vision, and created the online educational resource: QUT Robot Academy. Area of research:  Robotics I am interested in how robots can use the sense of vision to accomplish a broad range of tasks.   These might range from recognizing places or text in the world to dynamic tasks.  An example of a visual dynamic task is something like hand-eye coordination, and for a robot it might be visual control of flying or driving or manipulation of objects. Why vision? Nature has invented the eye ten different times so it must be an effective sensor for doing a diverse range of tasks.  Vision sensors and computing power are getting cheaper and cheaper.  Now is the time to be doing vision for robotics! Some specific topics of interest include:

• The use of visual information for controlling robot motion, a technique known as visual servoing.
• Very wide field-of-view cameras based on fisheye lens and lens/mirror (catadioptric) optical systems.
• Optical flow, how images from a moving robot can be used to infer the world’s 3D structure and the robot’s motion
• Computer architectures for implementing computer vision algorithms in real time
• Stereo vision, using information from one or more cameras to create the 3D world structure.
• The combination with robotics to create mobile sensing systems
• Vision processing within networks of cameras.

Achievements/recognition

• fellow of the IEEE
• fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering
• senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (UK)
• member of IEEE R&A Society AdCom (at large 2008-2010; 2011-2013; at large 2016-18 )
• editor-in-chief of the IEEE Robotics & Automation magazine (2009-2013)
• officer of the International Federation of Robotics Research
• founding and associate editor of the Journal of Field Robotics
• founding multi-media editor and editorial board member of the International Journal of Robotics Research
• member of the editorial advisory board of the Springer Tracts on Advanced Robotics series
• recipient of the Qantas/Rolls-Royce and Australian Engineering Excellence awards.

I received my Bachelor of Engineering and Master of Engineering Science degrees, both in Electrical Engineering, and a PhD in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, all from the University of Melbourne. Prior to QUT I was a senior principal research scientist at CSIRO where I founded the Autonomous Systems laboratory, a 50-person team undertaking research in mining, ground, aerial and underwater robotics, as well as sensor networks. Subsequently I led a major cross-organizational “capability platform” in wireless sensor networks.

Select keynote talks

• Commonwealth Science Conference, Royal Society, Singapore, June 2017
• Canadian Robotic Vision Conference (CRV17), Edmonton, May 2017.
• MATLAB Expo, San Jose, Nov 2016
• Royal Society, London, Nov 2015
• Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, annual conference, Nov 2015;
• International Forum on Engineering Science and Technol- ogy Development Strategy: Intelligent Systems – Cities, Information, and Robots, Shenzen, China, April 2015
• IROS, Chicago, 2014.
• Int. Conf. Mechatronics and Automation (ICMA), China, August 2010.
• Public lecture on robotics at the 30th Oporto International Film Festival (FantasPorto), March 2010.
• 2nd International Symposium on Information and Robot Technology (ISIRT), Tokyo, March 2008.
• Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications, Canberra, December 2008.
• TTI/Vanguard  NextGens Technologies, Santa Monica, December 2007.
• Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR2007), Rome September 2007.

Selected list of awarded grants

Australian Research Council

• Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision, CE140100016. Partner universities: ANU, U. Adelaide, Monash, Oxford, Imperial College, INRIA, ETHZ, Georgia Tech, NICTA. $19.0M (2014-20).
• Discovery Grant, Robot Navigation using Text, Maps and the Web, DP140103216: Prof Gordon Wyeth, Prof Peter Corke, Dr Ben Upcroft, A/Prof Richi Nayak. $336k (2011-13).
• Linkage Grant, LP110200375: Robotics for zero-tillage agriculture, Prof Peter Corke, Dr Ben Upcroft, Prof Gordon Wyeth, A/Prof Salah Sukkarieh (U. Sydney), $539k, (2011-14).

• Discovery Grant, DP110103006: Lifelong robotic navigation using visual perception, Prof Peter Corke, Prof Gordon Wyeth, Dr Ben Upcroft, Dr Michael Bosse (CSIRO), Dr Paul Newman (Oxford), $445k (2011-13).
• Discovery Grant, Image-based teleoperation of semi-autonomous robotic vehicles. Co-investigator with Dr Robert Mahony (ANU), $432k (2008-10).
• Discovery Grant, DP0342849: Image-based control of under-actuated dynamic systems, Dr Robert Mahony (Australian National University), Dr Peter Corke (CSIRO), $172.5k (2003-2005).

Other

• Roomwatch hand-hygiene monitoring, AusHSI, $80k (2012-13).

Awards and recognitions

• 2017: Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering
• 2016: Eureka Prize Finalist (research and innovation in environmental science), COTSBot team.
• 2015: QS-Wharton: Engineering & IT award (gold); Teaching Delivery award (silver).
• 2015: Australian Office for Learning and Teaching Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.
• May 2009: Award in Research and Development for virtual fencing technology, Australian Information Industry Association, Queensland division
• 2008: Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics for Springer Handbook of Robotics, Professional and Scholarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers, Inc.
• June 2008: Finalist (one of five) for the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Invention & Entrepreneurship Award (LHD project team)
• Dec 2007: Fellow of IEEE
• 2006: Australian Engineering Excellence award, Engineers Australia (Starbug project team)
• 2006: Innovation award, Engineers Australia, Queensland Engineering Excellence Awards (Starbug project team)
• 1999: Overseas Travel Fellowship, Australian Centre for Field Robotics
• 1996: Finalist (one of five) for the King-Sun Fu Memorial Best Transactions Paper Award, S. Hutchinson, G. Hager, and P. Corke, “A Tutorial on Visual Servo Control”, IEEE Trans. on Robotics and Automation, Vol. 12, No. 5, Oct. 1996, pp. 651-670
• 1995: QANTAS Rolls-Royce Engineering Excellence Award (SafeTCam project team)
• 1994: The Honda Award for Best Technology Presentation at ISATA (Aachen).

Career history

• 2010: Professor, QUT
• 2008: Transformational Capability Leader; Sensor Networks, CSIRO
• 2007 – 2008: Research theme leader; Sensor Networks, CSIRO
• 2004 – 2007: Research Director, Autonomous Systems Laboratory, CSIRO ICT Centre
• 2003: Senior Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Manufacturing and Infrastructure Technology
• 1995: Principal Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Manufacturing Science and Technology
• 1990: Senior Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Manufacturing Technology
• 1989: Research Scientist, CSIRO Division of Manufacturing Technology
• 1984: Experimental Scientist, CSIRO Division of Manufacturing Technology
• 1982 – 1983: Lecturer in control and computer architecture, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne.
• 1981:Graduate Research Assistant, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Melbourne. Also held visiting positions at
• 2009,12,13, 15: Mobile Robotics Group at Oxford University.
• 2003: Robotics Institute at Carnegie-Mellon University
• 1999: U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• 1988-1989: the GRASP laboratory at U.Pennsylvania

Erdos number (3)

• Erdos -> Goldberg -> Camtepe -> Corke
• Erdos -> Subbarao -> Vidyasagar -> (Spong|Hutchinson) -> Corke
• Erdos -> Noga Alon -> Erik Demain -> Daniela Rus -> Corke

Web links

• Google Scholar profile
• QUT Robot Academy
• Australian Centre for Robotic Vision
• Peter on Wikipedia
• Visual servoing background
• Random famous roboticists

Projects

• ACRV Picking Benchmark
• Amazon Picking Challenge (2016)
• Deep Learning for Grasping and Manipulation
• Robotic knee arthroscopy
• Semi-automated power pole inspection

Additional information