Peter Corke

Peter Corke

Senior Principal Research Scientist

Contact

PO Box 883
Kenmore 4069

Tel: +61 7 3327 4584
Mob: +61 410 601 842
Fax: +61 7 3327 4455
Email

Themes

  • Sensors and Sensor Network TCP
  • Landscape Systems and Trends

Projects

  • Sensor Nodes
  • Earth Rover

Science Area

  • Robotics

Biography

Peter is a senior principal research scientist and well known for his research on vision-based control, field robotics and wireless sensor networks. He founded and led the sensors and sensor networks theme which transitioned in the capability platform and was the former (and founding) research director of the Autonomous Systems laboratory.

He received a Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Melbourne in 1981. He worked within the Department for one year as a Research Assistant and two years as a lecturer whilst completing a Masters degree. He developed and taught two new fourth-year courses two spanning the areas of: Modern computer system hardware advanced operating system concepts and software techniques, real-time computer systems and applications, graphical display systems, and introduction to computer systems.

In 1984 he joined the CSIRO Division of Manufacturing Technology in Melbourne and worked on a variety of projects involving robotics, high-speed machine vision, machine control, and real-time software systems. He developed custom chips for a video-rate image-processing system subsequently licensed to Vision Systems, and was the technical lead on the SafeTCam project. During this period he completed a PhD at the University of Melbourne with a thesis on the topic of high-performance visual control of machines. That research work led to the publication of a book "Visual Control of Robots", Research Studies Press, 1997.

In late 1994 he moved to the Division's Brisbane laboratory to lead the mining equipment automation group within a CRC. He and the growing team worked on industry funded projects such as the automation of underground haulage vehicles, rock bolters and explosive loaders, and open-pit excavators such as draglines and shovels. After various divisional mergers and changes he and the robotics group became part of the CSIRO ICT Centre in early 2004. The robotics team and two other research groups (complex systems and medical imaging) were joined to become the Autonomous Systems laboratory. The lab has grown significantly while diversifying into fields such as UAVs, AUVs, and wireless sensor networks.

He is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Queensland ITEE School, QUT and has held visiting positions at the GRASP laboratory at U.Pennsylvania, the Coordinated Science Lab at U. Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the Field Robotics Centre at Carnegie-Mellon University and Oxford University.

He is the editor-in-chief of the IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine, author of the Robotics Toolbox for Matlab, member of the editorial boards of the Int. J. Robotics Research and the Springer STAR series, founding editor of the J. Field Robotics, and a board member of the International Federation of Robotics Research, a member of the permanent program committee for the International Symposium on Experimental Robotics. He was a former IEEE RAS distinguished lecturer, past President of the Australian Robotics & Automation Association, past national representative for the International Advanced Robotics Program, and a past Associate Editor of the IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine.

Academic Qualifications

1995 PhD University of Melbourne, High-performance visual closed-loop robot control
1984 M.Eng.Sc. (Elec) University of Melbourne, Computer Aided Control System Design and Real-Time Digital Implementation
1981 B.Eng. (Elec) University of Melbourne

Recent Professional Experience

2009 Visiting scientist, Mobile Robotics Group, Oxford University
2008 Sensors and Sensor Networks transformational capability platform leader, CSIRO
2007 Sensors and Sensor Networks theme leader, CSIRO
2004-2007 Research Director, CSIRO ICT Centre
2003 Visiting Scientist, Carnegie-Mellon University, Robotics Institute (4 months)
2000 Senior Principal Research Scientist CMIT
1999 Visiting Scientist, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Coordinated Science Laboratory (6 months)
1995-2000 Principal Research Scientist CSIRO MST

Achievements & Awards

2009 Award for Excellence in Physical Sciences and Mathematics for Springer Handbook of Robotics, Professional and Scolarly Publishing Division, Association of American Publishers, Inc. (2008)
2008 Runner up for IEEE/IFR Invention & Entrepeneurshp award (LHD team)
2007 Fellow of IEEE
2006 Australian Engineering Excellence award, Engineers Australia (Starbug team)
2006 Innovation award, Engineers Australia, Queensland Engineering Excellence Awards (Starbug team)
2003 CSIRO Exploration and Mining One-CSIRO Award
1999 CSIRO MST One Off Award for Autonomous Load Haul Dump project
1999 Overseas Travel Fellowship, Australian Centre for Field Robotics
1997 Finalist (one of five) for the 1996 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 Rolls-Royce-Qantas Award for Engineering Excellence and The Warren Centre Medal (SafeTCam)
1994 the Honda Award for Best Technology Presentation at ISATA (Aachen)
1988 CSIRO Overseas Travel Fellowship

Other Highlights

2008 Plenary talk, 2nd International Symposium on Information and Robot Technology (ISIRT), Tokyo
2007 Keynote talk, IEEE International Workshop on Safety, Security, and Rescue Robotics (SSRR2007), Rome
2006 Keynote talk International Robotics Rescue symposium, Kobe
2006 Selected for Leading the Research Enterprise program
2006 Chair, review panel for NICTA's ASSeT program
2004 Journal of Field Robotics (Wiley), founding editor and associate editor.
2004 Keynote talk at Insect Sensors and Robotics Workshop
2004-Present IEEE RAS distinguished lecturer
2003 Invited participant at workshop on future of ICT in CSIRO, which led to ICT Centre
2002-2003 Member of CSIRO corporate ICT Emerging Science Steering Group
2002-Present Member of Editorial Advisory Board for Springer-Verlag robotics series, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR).
2002 Panel member for “Reinventing ICT research in CSIRO”, to decide future of $50M annual investment in this area.
2002-2003 President of Australian Robotics and Automation Association (ARRA)
2001 Int. Journal Robotics Research, member of editorial board, founding multi-media editor
1999 Keynote talk at Field and Service Robotics, Pittsburgh
1997-2002 Australian contact (and webmaster) for the International Advanced Robotics Program (IARP)
1997 Panel member for review of computer vision research program, Industrial Research Ltd. (New Zealand National research institute)
1994-1995 Vice President of Australian Robot Association (ARA), and IFR affiliate
Open-sourced Robotics Toolbox and Vision Toolbox software is used by research laboratories, universities and students in 124 countries around the world. The most recent release of the Robotics Toolbox had over 5,000 downloads in 12 months. The toolbox serves as a pedagogical tool and a quantitative reference (a gold standard for algorithm implementers).
Erdos number of 4 (P.Erdos -> M. Vidyasagar -> M.Spong | S.Hutchinson -> P.Corke

Summary of Science & Technical Output

Books/Book chapters 30
Journal 50
Refereed Conference/Workshop 181
Technical/Client Reports 40
Invited Presentations 38
Patents 9

Student Supervision

2006 P. Hansen, Wide-angle visual odometry, PhD, QUT
2005 K. Usher, Visual Homing for a Car-like vehicle, PhD, QUT
2001 A. Bonchis, Modelling and control of hydraulic servo systems, PhD, U.Sydney
1999 J. Banks, Reliability Analysis of Transform-Based Stereo Matching Techniques and a New Matching Constraint, PhD, QUT

Science Citizenship

Editorial:
IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine, editor-in-chief
Journal of Field Robotics (Wiley), founding editor and associate editor.
Int. Journal Robotics Research, member of editorial board, founding multi-media editor
Member of Editorial Advisory Board for Springer-Verlag robotics series, Springer Tracts in Advanced Robotics (STAR).
IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, editorial board 1997-2001.
Boards:
International Federation of Robotics Research (IFRR)
Committees:
2007 Elected at large to IEEE Robotics and Automation Society AdCOM
2007 IEEE Conference on Decision and Control, Program Committee
* IEEE Int. Conf Robotics & Automation
2010 Senior program committee
2009 Senior program committee
2008 Oceania Region Chair
2007 Video chair
2007 Chair, best video paper committee
2005 Oceania Region Chair
2002-2004 technical program committee
2000 technical program committee
1998 technical program committee
2003 Best paper committee
2006/2000 Best vision paper committee
1996 video paper committee
2007 IEEE VTC 2007 TPC
2006 IEEE Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNets), steering committee
2004 IEEE Workshop on Embedded Networked Sensors (EmNets), program committee
2003 3rd International Conference on Computer Vision Systems, TPC
2005 Area chair for Robotics Science and Systems
2002-2004 IEEE/RSJ IROS TPC
2007 IEEE RAS Early Career Award, Nomination panel
2005 IEEE RAS Early Career Award, Selection panel
2006 IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Systems, technical program committee
2003 IEEE Computational Intelligence in Robotics and Automation, technical program committee
2001 IEEE 9th IEEE Mediterranean Conference, technical program committee
2007 SenSys (ACM/IEEE) program committee
2007 IPSN (ACM/IEEE) program committee
Chair:
2004-Present IEEE Distinguished Lecturer (Robotics & Automation Society)
2005 Workshop on Visual and Inertial Sensing (INERVIS), co-organizer
2005 General co-chair for Field and Service Robotics
International Symposium on Experimental Robotics, Member of permanent PC
2003 Workshop on Visual and Inertial Sensing (INERVIS), co-organizer
1999 General co-chair of ISER
1996 Tutorial (TT3) on visual servo control run at the IEEE Robotics&Automation Conference: Hager, Hutchinson and Corke.
Other:
2002-2003 President Australian Robotics and Automation Association
1994-1995 Vice President , President Australian Robotics Association
Reviewer of papers for IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, IEEE Robotics and Automation magazine, ICRA and IROS

Top 10 Publications

Publication details
S. Hutchinson, G. Hager, and P. Corke, “A tutorial on visual servo control,” IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, vol. 12, pp. 651–670, October 1996.
P. Corke and S. A. Hutchinson, “A new partitioned approach to image-based visual servo control,” IEEE Trans. Robot. Autom., vol. 17, pp. 507–515, August 2001.
P. I. Corke, Visual Control of Robots: High-Performance visual servoing. Mechatronics, Research Studies Press (John Wiley), 1996.
P.I. Corke and M.C. Good. Dynamic effects in visual closed-loop systems. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 12(5), pp. 671–683, October 1996.
Peter Corke. An inertial and visual sensing system for a small autonomous helicopter. Journal of Robotic Systems, vol 21(2), pp. 43–51, February 2004.
J. Banks and P. Corke, “Quantitative evaluation of matching methods and validity measures for stereo vision,” Int. J. Robotics Research, vol. 20, pp. 512–532, July 2001.
Z.Butler, P. Corke, R. Peterson, and D. Rus. From robots to animals: Virtual fences for controlling cattle. Int. J. Robotics Research, 25(5-6):485–508, may 2006.
P. Corke, “A robotics toolbox for MATLAB,” IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine, vol. 3, pp. 24–32, March 1996.
P. Corke, R. Peterson and D. Rus, “Localization and Navigation Assisted by Networked Cooperating Sensors and Robots”, Int. J. Robotics Research, vol. 24(9), pp. 771-, September 2005.
I. Vasilescu, K. Kotay, D. Rus, M. Dunbabin, and P. Corke. Data collection, storage and retrieval with an underwater sensor network. In Proc. 3rd ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys), pages 154–165, 2005.

Number of citations

ISI 1600
Citeseer 1094
Google Scholar 5562

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