Airports of the Future. This project will enhance the capabilities of Australian airport operators to design and manage complex airport systems. Research outcomes will enable the identification of patterns of behaviour and will provide tools to manage airport effectiveness and balance conflicting security, economic and passenger-driven pressures. Outcomes will improve productivity, enhance capabilities for critical infrastructure protection, and lessen the cost of mandated security, estimated t ....Airports of the Future. This project will enhance the capabilities of Australian airport operators to design and manage complex airport systems. Research outcomes will enable the identification of patterns of behaviour and will provide tools to manage airport effectiveness and balance conflicting security, economic and passenger-driven pressures. Outcomes will improve productivity, enhance capabilities for critical infrastructure protection, and lessen the cost of mandated security, estimated to grow to $152M by 2010 for the five major Australian airports. The deliverables of this project will be transferable to other complex socio-technical systems providing the potential to transform a range of Australian critical infrastructure and transportation hubs.Read moreRead less
Intelligent Model Checking. Real-world systems are typically so complex that software engineers require specialised CAD tools to debug and verify a design. Model checking is a formal method that is used extensively for this purpose, particularly for mission-critical systems. In this work, a new kind of verifying tool, based on model checking, is developed. This new model checker is intelligent because a heuristic search is integrated into the underlying formalism. It is not exhaustive, and is mo ....Intelligent Model Checking. Real-world systems are typically so complex that software engineers require specialised CAD tools to debug and verify a design. Model checking is a formal method that is used extensively for this purpose, particularly for mission-critical systems. In this work, a new kind of verifying tool, based on model checking, is developed. This new model checker is intelligent because a heuristic search is integrated into the underlying formalism. It is not exhaustive, and is more efficient than a traditional model checker during the design phase because it does only a minimum amount of work in its search for a fault.Read moreRead less
Large-scale Parallelization of Neural Stimulation in a Visual Prosthesis. Over time, engineers have been able to treat a large number of disorders through new technologies. For example, the deaf can now hear again through cochlear implants. Similar efforts to provide vision to the blind, however, have met with difficulties owing to the high quantities of sites that must be stimulated to provide 'useful' vision. This study addresses the important issues relating to the delivery of large quantitie ....Large-scale Parallelization of Neural Stimulation in a Visual Prosthesis. Over time, engineers have been able to treat a large number of disorders through new technologies. For example, the deaf can now hear again through cochlear implants. Similar efforts to provide vision to the blind, however, have met with difficulties owing to the high quantities of sites that must be stimulated to provide 'useful' vision. This study addresses the important issues relating to the delivery of large quantities of electrical stimulations to surviving nerves in the eyes of blind patients in an effort to devise a beneficial visual prosthesis or 'bionic eye'. The outcomes of this study could substantially enhance Australia's already prominent reputation in neurostimulation and provide much needed treatments to vision disorders.Read moreRead less
Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project repr ....Individualized cochlear implant sound coding: Optimized algorithms for better hearing. One in six Australians is affected by hearing loss. Hearing loss impacts on a person's educational and employment opportunities, resulting in a significant economic impact upon Australia. Over 10% of people with hearing impairment have a severe or profound hearing loss and may be candidates for a cochlear implant. Current cochlear implant sound processing only offers limited benefit to users. This project represents a truly innovative pathway forward in the development of cochlear implant sound coding that could substantially increase the speech perception of users, enabling these people to become and remain active and productive members of our community.Read moreRead less
Sound and Shape Synthesis Using Tensegrity Particle Systems. Pixar's Toy Story amazed audiences with its computer-generated images, yet the sound was still composed and ?tuned? almost wholly by human hand. In industry, virtual reality systems are increasingly applied to simulation and visualisation but, in general, 'sound? is poorly handled. In this project, we seek to research complex systems that will simulate an object's sound, shape and interaction characteristics in a unified approach. Our ....Sound and Shape Synthesis Using Tensegrity Particle Systems. Pixar's Toy Story amazed audiences with its computer-generated images, yet the sound was still composed and ?tuned? almost wholly by human hand. In industry, virtual reality systems are increasingly applied to simulation and visualisation but, in general, 'sound? is poorly handled. In this project, we seek to research complex systems that will simulate an object's sound, shape and interaction characteristics in a unified approach. Our proposed Tensegrity particle systems generate minimal, stable and robust descriptions of objects in interacting situations. This represents a new and unique approach to the unified representation of multimedia objects with applications in manufacturing and entertainment.Read moreRead less
System Identification of Complex System Models. This project lies within an ARC Research Priority Area. Namely, "Frontier Technologies". It involves the development of new technologies and fundamental theory that take data records from physical or abstract systems and generate mathematical models for use in prediction, control and diagnosis of the underlying system. In light of this, the project also lies within the ARC Research Priority Area of "Smart Information Use",
Modelling Virtual Transport Channel for Future Multimedia Heterogeneous Networks. Recent advances in network bandwidth and processing power have led to the emergence of real time multimedia streaming applications and it is expected that such applications will become an even more dominant source of traffic in future computer networks. Quality of service studies for real-time applications in high-speed networks, point to the importance of the transport layer functionality in admission control, mon ....Modelling Virtual Transport Channel for Future Multimedia Heterogeneous Networks. Recent advances in network bandwidth and processing power have led to the emergence of real time multimedia streaming applications and it is expected that such applications will become an even more dominant source of traffic in future computer networks. Quality of service studies for real-time applications in high-speed networks, point to the importance of the transport layer functionality in admission control, monitoring end-to-end delays, and network bandwidth adaptability. The project will study, design, develop and analyse a comprehensive model for the virtual transport layer to satisfy the necessary quality of service requirements for the next generation of multimedia-based applications.Read moreRead less
New Model Predictive Control Design Methods. Automatic computer control is fundamental to sustaining a wide range of manufacturing, mineral processing, chemical processing, and other industries vital to the Australian economy. Furthermore, the efficiency, profitability, and environmental impact of these operations is directly linked to the quality of this computer control. In many situations, even a few percent improvement in automatic control delivers dividends measured in many millions of doll ....New Model Predictive Control Design Methods. Automatic computer control is fundamental to sustaining a wide range of manufacturing, mineral processing, chemical processing, and other industries vital to the Australian economy. Furthermore, the efficiency, profitability, and environmental impact of these operations is directly linked to the quality of this computer control. In many situations, even a few percent improvement in automatic control delivers dividends measured in many millions of dollars. This project will develop design tools allowing for more sophisticated, high performance control to be more widely employed. This will deliver the potential for economic and environmental benefits and energy savings to be achieved across a range of industries.Read moreRead less
Innovative visualization of next-generation biomedical images. This project addresses the difficult problems associated with managing the vast amounts of data that are currently available with advanced imaging devices and displaying these data so that the maximum amount of information can be extracted. Developing visualization capabilities for such data is not a trivial undertaking but the outcome of this research will produce enabling visualization technologies that will significantly impact th ....Innovative visualization of next-generation biomedical images. This project addresses the difficult problems associated with managing the vast amounts of data that are currently available with advanced imaging devices and displaying these data so that the maximum amount of information can be extracted. Developing visualization capabilities for such data is not a trivial undertaking but the outcome of this research will produce enabling visualization technologies that will significantly impact the life science, biomedical research and the way clinicians view and use these data for patient management. These technologies will have broad applications across biology and molecular science and will enhance Australia's leading position in the development of frontier technologies.Read moreRead less
Novel time-frequency techniques for analysing and modeling non-stationary physical and engineering data. This project addresses an issue of fundamental importance in science and technology, where non-stationary data (which have time-varying statistics) are ubiquitous. Therefore, the development of time-frequency tools to model and analyse non-stationary data has great potential for impact in a wide range of areas reaching from seismic data analysis to biomedical signal processing to sonar and ra ....Novel time-frequency techniques for analysing and modeling non-stationary physical and engineering data. This project addresses an issue of fundamental importance in science and technology, where non-stationary data (which have time-varying statistics) are ubiquitous. Therefore, the development of time-frequency tools to model and analyse non-stationary data has great potential for impact in a wide range of areas reaching from seismic data analysis to biomedical signal processing to sonar and radar. Employing techniques to be developed in this proposal, we expect to be able to classify and detect features of non-stationary data that were unrecognisable using hitherto known methods.Read moreRead less