Context-aware verification and validation framework for autonomous driving. This project aims to enhance the reliability and safety of emerging self-driving vehicles, through a framework that supports the validation and verification of autonomous driving systems. This project expects to generate new knowledge in areas of software engineering, intelligent transport, and machine learning, using a multi-disciplinary research combining expertise from various fields. Expected outcomes of this project ....Context-aware verification and validation framework for autonomous driving. This project aims to enhance the reliability and safety of emerging self-driving vehicles, through a framework that supports the validation and verification of autonomous driving systems. This project expects to generate new knowledge in areas of software engineering, intelligent transport, and machine learning, using a multi-disciplinary research combining expertise from various fields. Expected outcomes of this project are a family of new context-aware techniques to verify and validate complex behaviours in autonomous driving. This should provide significant benefits, such as safe autonomous driving systems and the improved journey experience and security for road users.Read moreRead less
Platform technology to decode motor control through ultra high-field MRI. This project aims to advance our understanding of the poorly understood neural circuits that enable fine motor control in humans. To obtain this knowledge, new platform technology will be developed to capture the full kinematics of the hand during concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging at ultra high-field. This device will allow testing of fundamental theories describing the canonical microcircuits involved in ha ....Platform technology to decode motor control through ultra high-field MRI. This project aims to advance our understanding of the poorly understood neural circuits that enable fine motor control in humans. To obtain this knowledge, new platform technology will be developed to capture the full kinematics of the hand during concurrent functional magnetic resonance imaging at ultra high-field. This device will allow testing of fundamental theories describing the canonical microcircuits involved in hand motion. Expected outcomes include new evidence of mirror neurons and observation of predictive error signals in the motor cortex. This new knowledge paves the way towards improved computer-brain interface technology which is likely to create benefits through translation to applications such as artificial limb control.Read moreRead less
Neurobiological mechanisms of the interaction between pain and sleep. The project aims to reveal the brain mechanisms behind the interaction between such fundamental biological phenomena as sleep and pain. This highly interdisciplinary project expects to deliver significant insights into how poor sleep changes the brain to increase pain sensitivity in healthy adults, by combining novel lab-based mechanistic sleep and pain manipulations and naturalistic longitudinal observation. The rich multimod ....Neurobiological mechanisms of the interaction between pain and sleep. The project aims to reveal the brain mechanisms behind the interaction between such fundamental biological phenomena as sleep and pain. This highly interdisciplinary project expects to deliver significant insights into how poor sleep changes the brain to increase pain sensitivity in healthy adults, by combining novel lab-based mechanistic sleep and pain manipulations and naturalistic longitudinal observation. The rich multimodal dataset generated by the project will be made publicly available to enhance research transparency and international collaboration. This should provide significant benefits, ultimately opening up ways to improve quality of life and wellbeing of the Australian population.
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Insect-inspired flapping wing robots: autonomous flight control systems. This project aims to design a novel control scheme for insect-inspired, flapping-wing, micro aerial vehicles. This type of micro aerial vehicle has complex, periodic, time-varying and inherently unstable dynamics, which are practically challenging to model and implement in hardware. This project will design energy-based automatic stabilization and task-dependent control, and develop the insect-inspired platform for testing ....Insect-inspired flapping wing robots: autonomous flight control systems. This project aims to design a novel control scheme for insect-inspired, flapping-wing, micro aerial vehicles. This type of micro aerial vehicle has complex, periodic, time-varying and inherently unstable dynamics, which are practically challenging to model and implement in hardware. This project will design energy-based automatic stabilization and task-dependent control, and develop the insect-inspired platform for testing nonlinear control strategies. The expected outcomes will include new system and control theories, concepts, principles and technologies in controller design that can provide reliable flight control for bio-inspired, flapping-wing systems.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
Improving the performance of Australian social insurance schemes. Applying methods from computational social science, this project aims to develop a novel, multi-level modeling framework to assist transport injury, workplace injury and disability insurance schemes consistently achieve and maintain standards of high performance as recognised by international benchmarks. By creating a virtual laboratory for policy-makers and scheme managers, it expects to generate a comprehensive understanding of ....Improving the performance of Australian social insurance schemes. Applying methods from computational social science, this project aims to develop a novel, multi-level modeling framework to assist transport injury, workplace injury and disability insurance schemes consistently achieve and maintain standards of high performance as recognised by international benchmarks. By creating a virtual laboratory for policy-makers and scheme managers, it expects to generate a comprehensive understanding of mechanisms driving insurance scheme performance, enabling comparison of anticipated outcomes in response to legislative changes, policy changes and management decisions. The project aims to help schemes avoid human and financial failure, benefitting people with injuries and disabilities while reducing scheme costs.Read moreRead less
Understanding the generation of hypothalamic sleep neurons. This Project aims to investigate the mechanisms controlling the formation of the sleep neurons in the hypothalamus. We all sleep, and normal sleep-wake cycles play a central role in our biology. The functional role of these sleep neurons in the mature brain are well established. However, how the neurons are generated during development is very poorly defined. This project aims to address this critical knowledge gap, and will greatly inc ....Understanding the generation of hypothalamic sleep neurons. This Project aims to investigate the mechanisms controlling the formation of the sleep neurons in the hypothalamus. We all sleep, and normal sleep-wake cycles play a central role in our biology. The functional role of these sleep neurons in the mature brain are well established. However, how the neurons are generated during development is very poorly defined. This project aims to address this critical knowledge gap, and will greatly increase our understanding of how the development of this critical aspect of organismal function is orchestrated during development. This project will also develop bioinformatics tools with broad utility within the biosciences field and enhance the capacity for interdisciplinary international collaborations.Read moreRead less
Co-design and dynamic mission optimisation of hypersonic flight vehicles. This project aims to deliver fundamental knowledge by integrating the modelling and control with the design of next generation hypersonic platforms. In an era where Australia's national security reliance on geographic isolation and support from allied forces are being challenged, the research outcomes of this project will play an important role in understanding the capabilities of hypersonic systems. The project will also ....Co-design and dynamic mission optimisation of hypersonic flight vehicles. This project aims to deliver fundamental knowledge by integrating the modelling and control with the design of next generation hypersonic platforms. In an era where Australia's national security reliance on geographic isolation and support from allied forces are being challenged, the research outcomes of this project will play an important role in understanding the capabilities of hypersonic systems. The project will also have significant spillover benefits into other complex system domains, where computational tools can be used to aid in design leading to high embedded-IP products for Australian industry. Furthermore, the proposal encompasses a strong research training aspect, with graduates exposed to leading edge industry and academia.Read moreRead less