Peter is a robotics researcher, educator and writer. He left full-time university service in January 2024 but maintains a connection to the university and the Centre for Robotics as a distinguished professor emeritus.

He was director/codirector of the QUT Centre for Robotics (2020-23), and before that was director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Robotic Vision (2014-2020). His research is concerned with robotic perception using vision and force, dynamics and control, and the application of robots to tasks in the mining, agriculture and environmental monitoring sectors. He has held a number of editorial positions including: editor-in-chief of the IEEE Robotics & Automation magazine; founding editor of the Journal of Field Robotics; founding multi-media editor and executive editorial board member of the International Journal of Robotics Research; member of the editorial advisory board of the Springer Tracts on Advanced Robotics series.His contribution has been recognized by fellowship of the IEEE, the Australian Academy of Technology and Engineering, and the Australian Academy of Science.

Peter has served as a consultant to MathWorks (Boston); is currently a technical advisor to LYRO Robotics, Emesent, ARMHub; and chairs the Robotic Council of the Robotics Australia Group.

Peter's true passion is robotics education. He created widely used open-source software (in Python and MATLAB) for teaching and research in robotics and computer vision. He wrote the best selling textbook “Robotics, Vision, and Control”, now in its 3rd edition, and created the Robot Academy. Collectively these assets have taught robotics to millions of students around the world have led to national and international recognition such as the 2017 Australian University Teacher of the Year.

Prior to QUT, Peter founded and led CSIRO's Autonomous Systems Laboratory (2004-2009). He received his undergraduate and masters degrees in electrical engineering and PhD in mechanical and manufacturing engineering, all from the University of Melbourne. He has held visiting positions at Oxford, University of Illinois, Carnegie-Mellon University and University of Pennsylvania.