McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University

J. E. Colgate

Allen K. and Johnnie Cordell Breed Senior Professor in Design

Education

Ph.D. Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA

S.M. Mechanical Engineering, MIT, Cambridge, MA

S.B. Physics, MIT, Cambridge, MA

Research Interests

Robotics; human-machine interaction; haptic interface; cobots

Professor Colgate's principal research interest is the power-level haptic interaction of humans and machines. He is the inventor (with M.A. Peshkin) of cobots, a class of robotic devices intended for direct, physical collaboration with human operators. Cobots have been applied to industrial material handling, rehabilitation, remote manipulation and human factors studies. Current work focuses on the application of cobots to advanced prosthetic limbs.

Colgate has also worked extensively in the field of haptic display. He pioneered the application of passivity techniques to the study of haptic display stability and performance. Currently, his work in this area focuses on "fingertip haptics." Conventional haptic devices require a user to feel the virtual environment through a probe such as a stylus or thimble. The goal of fingertip haptics is to eliminate the probe and allow the user to feel the virtual environment directly via the fingertips.

Professor Colgate is also quite interested in technology transfer. He is the holder of numerous U.S. patents, and is co-founder of Stanley Cobotics, a manufacturer of human-assist devices for the industrial marketplace, and of Chicago PT, a developer of robotic technologies for physical rehabilitation. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Methode Electronics, a manufacturer of component and subsystem devices with manufacturing, design, and testing facilities in the United States, Mexico, Malta, United Kingdom, Germany, Czech Republic, Singapore, and China.

Significant Recognition

• Best Paper Award, CHI 2011 for “Enhancing Physicality in Touch Interaction with Programmable Friction” by Vincent Lévesque, Louise Oram, Karon MacLean, Andy Cockburn, Nicolas D. Marchuk, Dan Johnson, J. Edward Colgate and Michael A.Peshkin.
• Best Demonstration Award, 2007 World Haptics Conference, Tsukuba, Japan
• Alumnae of Northwestern Professor of Teaching Excellence, September 2003 - August 2006
• Leonardo Da Vinci Award for Contributing Significantly to Design Engineering, 2003. Presented by Design Engineering Division of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
• Freshman Programs Division (FPD) 2002 Best Paper Award for paper "Enriching Freshman Design Through Collaboration With Professional Designers" by P. Hirsch, J. Anderson, J. E. Colgate, J. Lake, B Shwom, and C. Yarnoff
• Northwestern University Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award, 2000
• 1998 ASME Material Handling Engineering Division Best Paper 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
• Henry Hess Award for outstanding paper by a young author in an ASME journal, 1995
• Ralph R. Teetor Educational Award of the SAE, 1995 Northwestern University Alumni Association Excellence in Teaching Award

Significant Professional Service

• Allen and Johnnie Breed University Professor of Design, September 2010 – present
• Visiting Professor, University of Siena, Siena, Italy, July 2008.
• Guest Researcher, Mechanical Engineering Laboratory, Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Tsukuba Science City, Japan, 2/96
• Associate Editor, IEEE Trans. Robotics and Automation

Selected Publications

• Colgate, J. E.; Peshkin, M. A.; Aguirre-Ollinger, G.; Goswami, A., “Inertia Compensation Control of a One-Degree-of-Freedom Exoskeleton for Lower-Limb Assistance: Initial Experiments”, Neural Systems and Rehabilitation Engineering, IEEE Transactions on, (2012)
• B. P. DeJong, J. E. Colgate and M. A. Peshkin, “A Cyclic Robot for Lower Limb Exercise”, Journal of Medical Devices-Transactions of the Asme, (2011)
• PD Marasco;K Kim;JE Colgate;MA Peshkin;TA Kuiken, “Robotic touch shifts perception of embodiment to a prosthesis in targeted reinnervation amputees”, Brain, (2011)
• G Aguirre-Ollinger;JE Colgate;MA Peshkin;A Goswami, “Design of an active one-degree-of-freedom lower-limb exoskeleton with inertia compensation”, International Journal of Robotics Research, (2011)
• Colgate, J. E.; Peshkin, M. A.; DeJong, B. P., “Mental Transformations in Human-Robot Interaction”, Mixed Reality and Human-Robot Interaction, (2011)
• Colgate, J. E; Peshkin, M.; Oram, L.; MacLean, K.; Cockburn, A., “Frictional widgets: enhancing touch interfaces with programmable friction”, Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, (2011)
• Colgate, J. E; Peshkin, M. A; Marchuk, N. D; Lévesque, V.; Oram, L., “Enhancing physicality in touch interaction with programmable friction”, Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, (2011)
• G Aguirre-Ollinger;JE Colgate;MA Peshkin;A Goswami, “A one-degree-of-freedom assistive exoskeleton with inertia compensation: the effects on the agility of leg swing motion”, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers Part H-Journal of Engineering in Medicine, (2011)