Active Sound Control and Noise Cancellation over Space. This project aims to address the critical issues for creating acoustic quiet zones in a noisy environment. It will provide novel signal processing theory for further development of active noise cancellation techniques over spatial regions. New technologies developed from this project are expected to underpin the future development of acoustic signal processing research and will have a broad range of applications such as reduction of noise i ....Active Sound Control and Noise Cancellation over Space. This project aims to address the critical issues for creating acoustic quiet zones in a noisy environment. It will provide novel signal processing theory for further development of active noise cancellation techniques over spatial regions. New technologies developed from this project are expected to underpin the future development of acoustic signal processing research and will have a broad range of applications such as reduction of noise inside cars, creation of individual quiet zones in passenger planes and mitigation of acoustic noise made by industrial plants to neighbouring suburbs. The outcomes from this proposal will also have economic importance as it can reduce the health risk posed to people working or living in noisy environments.Read moreRead less
Ultra-reliable and low-latency mission critical communications. This project aims to develop enabling technologies for ultra-reliable and low-latency communications. While the evolution of wireless communication technologies to date has focused on data rate improvement, very little is known on how to achieve ultra-reliability and almost-zero latency which is urgently required for mission critical applications such as smart manufacturing and intelligent vehicles. The outcomes of the project will ....Ultra-reliable and low-latency mission critical communications. This project aims to develop enabling technologies for ultra-reliable and low-latency communications. While the evolution of wireless communication technologies to date has focused on data rate improvement, very little is known on how to achieve ultra-reliability and almost-zero latency which is urgently required for mission critical applications such as smart manufacturing and intelligent vehicles. The outcomes of the project will be new analytical tools and practical guidelines for designing trusted communication platforms to realise these applications, with benefits ranging from improved safety in intelligent transportation systems to digital transformation of the manufacturing industry.Read moreRead less
Cost Effective Pipeline Condition Assessment Using Paired Pressure Sensor Arrays. Water distribution networks represent society's most important infrastructure asset. They are buried pipes and are often old and deteriorating. Cost-effective methods to assess their physical condition are urgently needed. This research will develop a novel and advanced approach to determine the interior condition of pipes quickly and effectively using small water hammer pulses or waves. Paired pressure sensor arra ....Cost Effective Pipeline Condition Assessment Using Paired Pressure Sensor Arrays. Water distribution networks represent society's most important infrastructure asset. They are buried pipes and are often old and deteriorating. Cost-effective methods to assess their physical condition are urgently needed. This research will develop a novel and advanced approach to determine the interior condition of pipes quickly and effectively using small water hammer pulses or waves. Paired pressure sensor arrays will be used to measure reflections of the waves in pipes and these methods will enable finer resolution and identification of pipeline faults, such as wall thickness loss and leakage while at the same time allowing operational continuity. The outcome will be powerful tools to more cost effectively manage these crucial assets.Read moreRead less
Next generation nondestructive inspection using guided-wave mixing. This project aims to develop a novel approach for early damage detection. It relies on a systematic experimental investigation of nonlinear ultrasonic interaction between different input wave modes in the presence of damage, so as to identify optimal mode selections and operating parameters that will maximise the sensitivity to particular forms of structural damage. The effects of in-service loading on wave-mixing response, and ....Next generation nondestructive inspection using guided-wave mixing. This project aims to develop a novel approach for early damage detection. It relies on a systematic experimental investigation of nonlinear ultrasonic interaction between different input wave modes in the presence of damage, so as to identify optimal mode selections and operating parameters that will maximise the sensitivity to particular forms of structural damage. The effects of in-service loading on wave-mixing response, and non-contact detection suitable for hard-to-inspect surface conditions, will also be investigated. The new developments will help transform existing schedule-based maintenance practice to a condition-based maintenance paradigm, to achieve significant cost savings in maintenance.Read moreRead less
Towards High-quality Hetero-epitaxial III-V Semiconductor Nanowires. The use of semiconductor nanowires has uncovered many scientific curiosities and extended their potential applications in many fields. In general, nanowire growth is governed by metallic catalysts, involving nanowire nucleation and growth. So far, the role of catalysts during nanowire nucleation is not clear and needs urgent attention. This project aims to investigate the behaviour of catalysts before and during the nucleation ....Towards High-quality Hetero-epitaxial III-V Semiconductor Nanowires. The use of semiconductor nanowires has uncovered many scientific curiosities and extended their potential applications in many fields. In general, nanowire growth is governed by metallic catalysts, involving nanowire nucleation and growth. So far, the role of catalysts during nanowire nucleation is not clear and needs urgent attention. This project aims to investigate the behaviour of catalysts before and during the nucleation of III-V nanowires by means of nano-characterisation to ultimately integrate high-quality III-V nanowires on silicon substrates. The new knowledge developed from this project is expected to provide critical insights for developing high-quality III-V nanowires integrated on silicon substrates.Read moreRead less
Porosity in Si, Ge and the Si(x)Ge(1-x) alloys induced by ion irradiation. Ion beam methods will be used to form porous layers in Si, Ge and their alloys with a range of technological applications. The distributions of pore size and shape will be characterised with laboratory and synchrotron-based analytical techniques including a 3D reconstruction of the irradiation-induced porous structure.
Optical tweezers as a micro-rheological probe of soft surfaces. Biomembranes are more than soft containers - their dynamic flexibility plays an important role in cell function, but measurements of mechanical properties of soft surfaces are non-existent. This project develops and applies a new optical tweezers method to measure the flexibility of membranes and its effects upon the friction of nearby particles.
Nanowire infrared avalanche photodetectors towards single photon detection. This project aims to demonstrate semiconductor nanowire based infrared avalanche photodetectors (APDs) with ultra-high sensitivity towards single photon detection. By employing the advantages of their unique one-dimensional nanoscale geometry, the nanowire APDs can be engineered to different device architectures to achieve performance superior to their conventional counterparts. It is expected that this project will mak ....Nanowire infrared avalanche photodetectors towards single photon detection. This project aims to demonstrate semiconductor nanowire based infrared avalanche photodetectors (APDs) with ultra-high sensitivity towards single photon detection. By employing the advantages of their unique one-dimensional nanoscale geometry, the nanowire APDs can be engineered to different device architectures to achieve performance superior to their conventional counterparts. It is expected that this project will make significant contributions to the development of next generation high performance, fast speed, small size and low cost infrared photodetector technology platform enabling numerous emerging fields in modern transportation, communication, quantum computation and information processing to revolutionise our life and society.Read moreRead less
Fast Precision Robust Control of Resonant Flexible Systems. The project aims to produce new control system design tools to enable fast precision control of advanced engineering systems encorporating flexible structures. This should enable improved speed and accuracy in control systems for precision instruments such as atomic force microscopes along with improving control system performance in areas of precision engineering such as semiconductor manufacturing, robotics and microelectromechanical ....Fast Precision Robust Control of Resonant Flexible Systems. The project aims to produce new control system design tools to enable fast precision control of advanced engineering systems encorporating flexible structures. This should enable improved speed and accuracy in control systems for precision instruments such as atomic force microscopes along with improving control system performance in areas of precision engineering such as semiconductor manufacturing, robotics and microelectromechanical systems. The outcomes are expected to be new control system synthesis and modelling tools enabling fast and highly accurate control of industrial systems using nonlinear and switching elements and achieving high levels of robustness. This will benefit Australian precision manufacturing industries.Read moreRead less
Nonlinear Quantum Control Engineering. This project will develop tractable methods for the design of robust, nonlinear, coherent feedback control systems building on the approach of quantum risk sensitive control and extending classical nonlinear control methods. It will also develop methods to design robust and nonlinear filters and coherent observers for nonlinear and finite level quantum systems and apply these results to the design of robust measurement based quantum controllers. In addition ....Nonlinear Quantum Control Engineering. This project will develop tractable methods for the design of robust, nonlinear, coherent feedback control systems building on the approach of quantum risk sensitive control and extending classical nonlinear control methods. It will also develop methods to design robust and nonlinear filters and coherent observers for nonlinear and finite level quantum systems and apply these results to the design of robust measurement based quantum controllers. In addition, the project will apply coherent and measurement based robust control methods to achieve useful emergent behaviours in nonlinear quantum networks. Such emergent behaviours may involve the robust reduction of decoherence effects and the robust solution of quantum computational problems. Read moreRead less