The Center for Robotics and Intelligent Systems of CIGIT has established a long term collaboration with Professor William Levine from the University of Maryland at College Park.  Recently the team has made a major achievements in tele-operated control of a Minimally Invasive Surgical Robotic System and in virtual surgery with haptic feedback. It is undoubtedly a great opportunity for CIGIT to initiate this exciting collaboration, and the joint work encourages more innovative research on robotic design, intelligent systems, and human-machine interfaces, all of which significantly contributes to both theoretical and applied research at CIGIT. 

   Professor Levine is currently involved in various robotic projects at the University of Maryland. Throughout his career he has specialized in the design and analysis of control systems and related problems, such as filtering. He is Life Fellow of the IEEE, Former President of the IEEE Control Systems Society and of the American Automatic Control Council (AACC). He has also been Chair of the SIAM  Interest Group in Control Theory and its Applications. He is a recipient of the IEEE's Third Millennium Medal.  

   CIGIT, as the youngest member of Chinese Academy of Science, is now attracting more and more foreign scholars to visit and collaborate. Prof. Levine was appointed a distinguished member of the strategic committee of CIGIT, and he is also the key element of a new series of international collaborations, just as he wrote in the letter to the Director Yuan, “…I have enjoyed the work, the people, and the CIGIT environment very much. I have learned a great deal from Yao Li (Director of Robotics Center) and his people as a result of our discussions and detailed work on the robotic surgery project…” （Fig 1：Prof. Levine’s hand-written letter to Dr. Yuan, Fig 2：Prof. Levine working with the robotic researchers）.

 Prof. Levine’s hand-written letter to Dr. Yuan

Prof. Levine working with the robotic researchers