Student topics

Design relies on prototyping methods to help envisage future design concepts and elicit feedback from potential users. A key challenge the design of human-robot interaction (HRI) with collaborative robots is the current lack of prototyping tools, techniques, and materials. Without good prototyping tools, it is difficult to move beyond existing solutions and develop new ways of interacting with robots that make them more accessible and easier for people to use.This project will develop a robot collaboration prototyping toolkit that combines …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

Complex manufacturing environments characterised by high value and high product mix manufacturing processes pose challenges to Human-Robot Collaboration (HRC). Allowing people to see what robots are ‘thinking’ will allow workers to efficiently collaborate with co-located robotic partners. A tighter integration of work routines requires improved approaches to support awareness in human-robotic co-working spaces. There is a need for solutions that also let people see what the robot is intending to do so that they can also efficiently adjust their actions …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Creative Industries, Education and Social Justice

School

School of Design

Research centre(s)

Design Lab

International trade is heavily reliant on maritime transportation which constitutes 80% of total volume. Ports have a significant impact on the efficiency of maritime transportation, with significant delays to vessels observed in accessing or departing ports. These delays can be a result of constraints on wharf capacity, channel capacity, access to tugs and pilots, or a combination of these factors. This project will focus on the development of novel operations research techniques to optimise the efficiency of scheduling vessel movements …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science

Cape Bionics has its foundations in the aerospace industry in the design of compression suits worn by astronauts on the international space station. The research which underpinned the design of these space suits has now been applied to sport as a means of improving performance and recovery in elite athletes.For compression garments to be effective they must fit perfectly and apply specific pressure regimes. Cape Bionics use technology from the medical and aerospace industry to provide custom fit compression garments …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Health

School

School of Biomedical Sciences

For a government to operate efficiently, the trust of its constituents, as well as the global community, is considered to be of substantial importance. A lack of trust could impair the government’s ability to effectively manage and fund its operations from collecting taxes and external investment. However, further research is required to understand the underlying trust mechanisms and their influence on governments’ performance. To address this research gap, the project will examine how trust in government is determined, evaluate how …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy

Faculty

Faculty of Business and Law

School

School of Accountancy

Research centre(s)

Centre for Future Enterprise

The Australian Census collects data every ten years to reflect who we are as a nation. But the data collected by the Census only tells part of our story.Indigenous people lived in Australia for thousands of years before the arrival of European settlers, accumulating a wealth of knowledge about Australia's land, climate, flora and fauna. Researchers have only begun tapping this knowledge as the basis for modern scientific research.This project will combine machine learning and text-analytics tools to develop a …

Study level

PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours

Faculty

Faculty of Science

School

School of Mathematical Sciences

Research centre(s)

Centre for Data Science

Much like driving cars on our roads, there are rules around driving maritime systems (boats) on waterways regarding where you can drive and how to avoid and behave in potential collision situations.In this project, you'll explore and develop state-of-the-art perception and decision support solutions to allow robotic surface vessels (robot boats) to safely travel complex waterways in and around other human-driven vessels. This will involve diving deep into vision and laser-based sensor processing and fusion algorithms, as well as robust …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

This PhD aims to investigate methods for enabling robots to intelligently move their perception systems to improve their view of a target object. Typically, robots capture images of their environment and then decide how to act: grasping an item, move to a location etc... However, sometimes it is necessary for a robot to gather more information in order to make a better decision. How can a robot decide on where to move its sensors (i.e. camera) such that it learns …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Reaching into cluttered and unstructured environments for robotic manipulation is still a largely unsolved problem. Current motion planning strategies for robots optimise for reaching while avoiding collisions within their environment. This is a fundamental problem when interacting with real-world environments as contact is inevitable. This PhD seeks to understand how we can use tactile or other sensory feedback and advanced control methods to exploit the environment for solving robotic tasks that are not achievable with current techniques. This PhD aims …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

The aim of this PhD is to develop an autonomous multirotor based aerial manipulator that is capable of searching an environment, visually identifying a payload, and performing a pick and-place type maneuver. Full 3D trajectories for the search stage of the flight need to be predefined, with the grasping maneuver generated dynamically once the payload is identified. The manipulator and payload interactions with the multirotor base need to be actively compensated for by the controller to ensure stable flight during …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Autonomous and non-autonomous vehicles face a wide range of challenges in identifying and safely traversing terrain across a wide range of environments from mine sites to farms to forests to deserts. We are looking for PhD students interested in developing new techniques for improving terrain traversability detection, using both "traditional" methods as well as modern deep learning-based pipelines. …

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics

Multiple manipulators or manipulators and mobile manipulators share a workspace and/or workpiece. How do these robots coexist safely while also completing tasks quickly?Multiple robots assembling a part in a shared workspace.Multiple robots cooperatively assemble a part in a shared workspace.Mobile manipulators and manipulators cooperatively manipulating: a mobile manipulator collects a bottle and brings it to be opened by a manipulator before delivering the bottle.

Study level

PhD

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering

School

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics