Information About

Michael Peshkin Professor Dept. of Mechanical Engineering Northwestern University 2145 Sheridan Road, Rm. B227 Evanston, IL 60208-3111, USA TEL: 847-491-4630 FAX: 847-273-0559 peshkin@northwestern.edu link to research site  (lims.mech.northwestern.edu) link to CV  (www.mech.northwestern.edu/peshkin) B.S. Physics, University of Chicago (1979) M.A. Physics, Cornell University (1984) PhD. Physics, Carnegie Mellon (1987)

Honors and Awards

• Alpha Phi Foundation Professor of the Year, Northwestern Chapter
• National Science Foundation Presidential Young Investigator Award
• Discover Magazine, 1997 Annual Technology Awards
• Best Conference Paper, 1997 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation
• Best Conference Paper, MHED Division, 1998 ASME Material Handling Engineering Division
• Member, Robotics Council, Robotics and Human Augmentation Program, NSF

Research: Robotics; cobots; novel sensors and actuators, human-human & human-machine interaction; rehabilitation robotics

Professor Peshkin's research is in human/machine interaction, and recently in studying how humans communicate physically while engaged in a shared task. He is also interested in novel actuators and sensors.

Peshkin holds 15 patents, most of them licensed, and is a co-inventor (with J. Edward Colgate) of Cobots: collaborative robots for direct interaction with humans in a shared task. He is a co-founder of Cobotics, Inc. which introduced Intelligent Assist Devices into the automobile assembly workplace.  He co-founded Z-KAT Inc. (now MAKO Surgical), a pioneer in image guided surgery, with intellectual property developed at Northwestern.  Most recently he co-founded Chicago PT LLC, which developed a gait & balance training robot for rehabilitation after stroke.  The technology is now owned by the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, and is undergoing further testing and development.  

In the classroom

Professor Peshkin created the course Engineering Analysis 3: System Dynamics, which is taken by almost all first year students in the school of engineering. EA3 is part of Northwestern's signature Engineering First curriculum, which engages undergraduate students in the concepts and experience of engineering from the beginning of freshman year.

EA3 has served as a testbed for educational innovation. Peshkin and colleague L. C. Brinson wrote the online textbook for the course, and introduced elements of the peer instruction methodology and other concepts into the classroom. The course covers material often taught at junior or senior level, but which is in fact fully accessible to freshmen.

Peshkin also developed the project-based lab course Advanced Mechatronics which is available to graduate students and well qualified undergraduates.  

He is faculty sponsor to the annual undergraduate Design Competition.

Selected publications

Rehabilitation Medicine Welcomes a Robotic Revolution
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) September 14, 2005, Vol 294, No. 10, p.1191

System Dynamics
Michael A. Peshkin, L. Catherine Brinson, 2005

The Cobotic Hand Controller: Design, Control and Performance of a Novel Haptic Display
Eric L. Faulring, J. Edward Colgate, Michael A. Peshkin
The International Journal of Robotics Research, Vol. 25, No. 11, November 2006, pp. 1099-1119

Robotic Rehab
MIT Technology Review, Sept. 2005

Haptically Linked Dyads: Are Two Motor-Control Systems Better Than One?
Kyle Reed, Michael A. Peshkin, Mitra J. Hartmann, Marcia Grabowecky, James Patton, and Peter M.Vishton
Psychological Science, 17(5), p.365-366, May 2006

Cobot architecture
Michael A. Peshkin, J. Edward Colgate, Witaya Wannasuphoprasit, Carl Moore, Brent Gillespie
IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 17(4), p.377, August 2001

KineAssist: A Robotic Overground Gait and Balance Training Device
Michael A. Peshkin, David Brown, Julio Santos-Munne, Alex Makhlin, David Brown, J. Edward Colgate, James L. Patton, Douglas Schwandt
IEEE 9th International Conference on Rehabilitation Robotics, June 28, 2005

Increasing the Impedance Range of a Haptic Display by Adding Electrical Damping
Joshua S. Mehling, J. Edward Colgate, Michael A. Peshkin,
First Joint Eurohaptics Conference and Symposium on Haptic Interfaces for Virtual Environment and Teleoperator Systems (WHC'05), 2005