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 811 matching student topics
Displaying 25–36 of 811 results
Optimisation of piezoelectric materials for robotics applications
Piezoelectricity, which translates to “pressure electricity”, is the phenomenon in which certain materials convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, and vice versa. Such materials are common-place and are used in a variety of applications including sensor, actuator, and energy harvesting technologies. The capabilities of such piezoelectric materials have not yet been fully realised. We plan to use computational structural optimisation to design new piezoelectric materials and components that may contribute to novel sensing technologies for robotics applications. Essentially, robots need …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Transport big data analytics: Imputing missing data
The missing data problem is often unavoidable for real-world data collection systems because of a variety of factors, such as sensor malfunctioning, maintenance work, transmission errors, and so on. Filling in missing information in a dataset is an important requirement for many machine-learning algorithms that require a complete dataset as input. Data imputation algorithms aim at filling the missing information in a dataset. Many missing data imputation techniques exist in the literature, with applications demonstrated on various types of datasets. …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Capturing the impact of patient variability in a novel cancer treatment
In 2015, the Food and Drug Association (FDA) approved a lab-engineered virus for the treatment of melanoma (skin cancer). Since then, there has been a significant increase in the number of lab-grown viruses that are being tested in clinical trials as potential treatments of cancer. Unfortunately, it seems that a large number of patients in these clinical trials fail under this treatment and currently there is no way to distinguish between responders and non-responders to treatment.Fortunately, we can use mathematics …
- Study level
- Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Ultrafast laser ablation of biological tissue
Lasers have enormous potential as surgical tools. With appropriate tuning, they can be used to cut, cauterise, characterise, and possibly join tissues, all without requiring contact.In this project we will examine the use of ultrafast laser pulses to perform cold ablation surgeries. Specifically, this will target applications in paediatric burn victims. Here, the scar tissue formed after a burn will not grow with the rest of a patient’s skin, but will instead tighten over time, needing regular surgery to release …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Spider silk: self-healing in a super fibre
Spider silks possess a range of qualities that are rarely found simultaneously in one material. Its outstanding toughness, extensibility and strength are only a few of the desirable traits that make spider silk of such interest. It is biodegradable, biocompatible, and extremely lightweight.A further advantage lies in its processing conditions and requirements. Whereas production of Kevlar and other synthetics comes at a high monetary and environmental cost, spiders spin recyclable fibres on demand, under ambient conditions using water as a …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Preventing grate overheating in biomass fired boilers
The furnace grate is a key component in the combustion of renewable waste biomass in the Australian sugar industry to provide steam and power. Some of its important functions are: providing a pilot support flame to the fuel burning in suspension, provision of combustion air and removal of ash.Over-heating of the grate under adverse conditions can result in grate damage and high capital replacement costs as well as potential factory stops. Fuel build up on the grate due to furnace …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
Implementing virtual reality techniques to investigate users’ perceptions of hospital rooms
We have an ongoing project that investigates how patients and their carers respond to different lighting conditions and outdoor views in hospital rooms (recovery ward). We want to better understand how daylighting and views influence occupants’ attitudes during their recovery process.This would contribute to designing hospital environments that are more responsive to users’ requirements for well-being.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Architecture and Built Environment
Technologies to capture human-building interactions for responsive built environments
We have an ongoing project that investigates how people change their work environment to suit their comfort needs. We want to better understand how building systems can be designed to increase human comfort over their personal comfort. This would contribute to designing buildings that are more responsive to occupant’s preferences and needs.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Architecture and Built Environment
Indoor sensors to measure and visualise environmental data
We have an ongoing project that investigates how people change their work environment to suit their comfort needs. We have existing electronic devices that we want to optimise for better correlation and visualisation of the indoor climate measurements (lighting, thermal, air quality, occupancy). This would contribute to devices that are better integrated and more responsive to the demands of occupants.
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Analysis of professional squash matches
This project concerns computer vision and statistical analysis of performance in professional level matches in the game of squash.The goal is to use computer vision and existing systems to capture and analyse patterns of play, allowing coaches and professional players to develop strategies to improve performance, to counter particular types of play and even to tailor game plans to attack individual opponents.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours, Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
Validating smart-device 3D photography for remote healthcare of children with spinal deformity
Scoliosis is a three dimensional (3D) spinal deformity that manifests as a structural deformity of the spine and ribcage. Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis (AIS) is the most common presentation, affecting 2-4% of adolescents. AIS has no known cause or cure, and is most frequently severe in females.Effective management of paediatric scoliosis is heavily reliant upon early diagnosis, and timely specialist appointments at tertiary spine clinics in Brisbane. At these appointments, it is important for the spinal specialist to see the patient's …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Biomedical Technologies
Bio-production pathways: how much greenhouse gas emissions can be saved with bio-products?
The climate emergency is spurring a new generation of products and manufacturing industries with low or net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (carbon footprint). This will include the manufacture of bio-products (bio-fuels, bio-plastics, bio-materials, bio-chemicals) from biomass (residues and wastes from agriculture, forestry, food waste etc.). It will be particularly important for Queensland, due to its ideal climatic conditions for growing biomass to support a bio-based manufacturing industry. These new industries will need information about the net GHG emission savings from …
- Study level
- Vacation research experience scheme
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Agriculture and the Bioeconomy
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