QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 41 matching student topics
Displaying 13–24 of 41 results
Tracking small bones for robotic surgery
Robotic knee surgery can perform femoral and tibial resection. Currently it is not possible to use robotic technology for patella preparation; to do so will require miniaturisation of tracking, effective clamping of the patella and controlled use of a saw. This project will aim to develop the technology for any small bone resection with a robot, taking the patella as a test case.
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Achieving a sub-micrometer surgical robot end-effector via hybrid sensing
When operating with a tool within the human body in the context of a medical procedure, it is crucial to be able to keep track of the pose of the tool. This project will develop a hybrid approach to end effector pose estimation by combing optical tracking with other sensor inputs (e.g. force, sound, acoustic emissions) to compliment and improve tracking accuracy with applications towards orthopaedic surgical robots. This project is part of a broader collaboration with industry partner Stryker.
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Adaptive and efficient robot positioning
I am looking for highly motivated and talented PhD students to work with us on robot localisation and navigation. The students would join my DECRA Fellowship project "Adaptive and Efficient Robot Positioning Through Model and Task Fusion" funded by the Australian Research Council, which provides substantial top-up scholarships in addition to QUT's tax-free base stipend.Robot positioningWhere are you? This is a fundamental question to which most of us usually know the answer. And so do the birds singing in our …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Re-localisation in natural environments
Re-localisation in robotics involves the process of determining a robot's current pose, consisting of its position and orientation. This can either be within a previously mapped and known environment (i.e. prior map) or relative to another robot in a multi-agent setup. Re-localisation is essential for enabling robots to perform tasks such as autonomous monitoring and exploration seamlessly, even when they encounter temporary challenges in precisely tracking their location in GPS-degraded environments. For instance, consider the 'wake-up' problem, where a robot …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Ethical and Legal Implications of RPA and Enterprise Automation
Examine the ethical and legal implications of RPA/Enterprise Automation adoption in organisations. Research can focus on addressing issues such as data privacy, transparency, accountability, and the impact of RPA/Automation on human employment, culture, and structure.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Information Systems
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Behavioural Economics, Society and Technology
Investigating the application of sustainable AI practices in construction
The construction industry plays a vital role in the global economy and there is a growing interest in utilising artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its productivity and efficiency. Despite the industry's significant contribution to the economy, it has faced challenges such as large cost overruns, extended schedules, and quality concerns. Nevertheless, AI is making significant strides to remove these issues by revolutionising various aspects of the construction industry. This is evident from enhancing project planning and design to improving construction …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Architecture and Built Environment
Mapping the world: understanding the environment through spatio-temporal implicit representations
Accurately mapping large-scale infrastructure assets (power poles, bridges, buildings, whole suburbs and cities) is still exceptionally challenging for robots.The problem becomes even harder when we ask robots to map structures with intricate geometry or when the appearance or the structure of the environment changes over time, for example due to corrosion or construction activity.The problem difficulty is increased even more when sensor data from a range of different sensors (e.g. lidars and cameras, but also more specialised hardware such as …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Ubiquitous visual positioning devices
Everything that moves is defined and limited by its ability to navigate the world in which it exists. Knowing where you are located in the world is a key navigational capability for people, animals, and both autonomous and human-operated platforms ranging from self-driving cars to aircraft.But accurate and trustworthy positional knowledge has widespread potential implications beyond navigation: it can, for example, allow life-and-death decisions in defence and in tracking the spread of global pandemics. Both the potential of and problems …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
The dark side of robotic process automation
Pandemics such as COVID 19 have forced organisations to pursue hyper-automation to maintain operational sustainability. Many organisations are keen to adopt Robotic Process Automation (RPA) to dramatically improve operational efficiency. However, evidence to date highlighted various associated challenges associated with adoption of RPA in organisations.Furthermore, recent surveys by consultant organisations found a high RPA project fail rate and their inability to meet the expected return on investment.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Information Systems
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Future Enterprise
Investigating Australian consumer perspectives on smart home products
Technological advancements such as information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence, internet-of-things, robotics, and the increasing popularity of the smart city and smart living movements during the last couple of decades have created and intensified a boom of the smart home industry. At present, digital technology applications uptake in homes has become common and increasingly changed people’s lifestyles. Smart home technology provides a suite of independently and remotely controlled software and hardware connected to a network to deliver smart living. Smart …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Architecture and Built Environment
Robotic maintenance of equipment
Think about the problem of maintaining equipment at remote work sites. How can robotic technology help human maintenance staff to work more safely and productively?
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Robot learning for navigation, interaction, and complex tasks
How can robots best learn to navigate in challenging environments and execute complex tasks, such as tidying up an apartment or assist humans in their everyday domestic chores?Often, hand-written architectures are based on complicated state machines that become intractable to design and maintain with growing task complexity. I am interested in developing learning-based approaches that are effective and efficient and scale better to complicated tasks.Especially learning based on semantic information (such as extracted by the research in semantic SLAM above), …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
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