Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE240100960
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$420,198.00
Summary
Reverse Design of Tuneable 4D Printed Materials for Soft Robotics. This project aims to facilitate the design and manufacture of specialised objects that can change their shape over time. These types of objects are made from ‘tuneable metamaterials’, which can be made by 4D printing: 3D printing with an added dimension of time. These materials are becoming indispensable in many fields- including non-metallic soft robots used in medicine or the exploration of harsh environments like space- but ar ....Reverse Design of Tuneable 4D Printed Materials for Soft Robotics. This project aims to facilitate the design and manufacture of specialised objects that can change their shape over time. These types of objects are made from ‘tuneable metamaterials’, which can be made by 4D printing: 3D printing with an added dimension of time. These materials are becoming indispensable in many fields- including non-metallic soft robots used in medicine or the exploration of harsh environments like space- but are currently onerous to make. This project will develop a revolutionary new method for a user to work backward from defining the desired qualities to the manufacture of the object that satisfies their needs. It will also create a library that will allow users to quickly select a material that will be appropriate.Read moreRead less
Muscle-based Signals for Responsive Physically-Assistive Robotics. This project aims to develop a physically assistive robot for industrial use that interprets signals from the human user’s muscles during a physical activity and responds with appropriate assistance. This is significant because the robot must accommodate the complexity of movement required in industrial settings and adapt to variabilities in muscle activation signals among users that also change in time. The expected research out ....Muscle-based Signals for Responsive Physically-Assistive Robotics. This project aims to develop a physically assistive robot for industrial use that interprets signals from the human user’s muscles during a physical activity and responds with appropriate assistance. This is significant because the robot must accommodate the complexity of movement required in industrial settings and adapt to variabilities in muscle activation signals among users that also change in time. The expected research outcome is an intuitive, assistive robot worn by the human workforce that enhances their productivity and longevity, improves working conditions, lowers production costs, and increases workforce resilience. The robot’s capabilities will be demonstrated in this project through the challenging activity of sheep shearing.Read moreRead less
Early Career Industry Fellowships - Grant ID: IE230100169
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$457,684.00
Summary
Next-generation mRNA manufacturing and analysis technologies. Developing innovations in RNA manufacturing and technology. The project aims to develop cutting-edge manufacturing and analysis technologies by optimising Self-amplifying (SAM) RNA production towards low impurities, creating reliable purification technologies, and filling critical gaps in RNA analysis. The project expects to yield significantly cheaper, higher-quality RNA products and develop novel methods in RNA analysis. The outcome ....Next-generation mRNA manufacturing and analysis technologies. Developing innovations in RNA manufacturing and technology. The project aims to develop cutting-edge manufacturing and analysis technologies by optimising Self-amplifying (SAM) RNA production towards low impurities, creating reliable purification technologies, and filling critical gaps in RNA analysis. The project expects to yield significantly cheaper, higher-quality RNA products and develop novel methods in RNA analysis. The outcomes are expected to revolutionise RNA manufacturing, develop cutting-edge commercialisable IP, scholarly know-how, and galvanise the Australian biomanufacturing sector towards sovereign capability, biosecurity and commercialisation of new animal, human and plant RNA products.Read moreRead less
Additive Manufacturing of Nanotwinned Titanium Alloys for Critical Use. The project aims to use 3D printing technology to create new titanium alloy components that are substantially lighter and stronger than current versions and therefore highly relevant for high temperature and stress uses in leading-edge industries such as aeroplane manufacture. The project expects to create new means to strengthen and improve the resilience of the commercial alloys’ microstructure with unprecedented in-servic ....Additive Manufacturing of Nanotwinned Titanium Alloys for Critical Use. The project aims to use 3D printing technology to create new titanium alloy components that are substantially lighter and stronger than current versions and therefore highly relevant for high temperature and stress uses in leading-edge industries such as aeroplane manufacture. The project expects to create new means to strengthen and improve the resilience of the commercial alloys’ microstructure with unprecedented in-service performance and thereby substantially broaden the industrial adoptions of 3D-printed products. This should also provide significant cost and environmental benefits and enhance Australia’s international standing in cutting-edge research on advanced manufacturing and materials.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230101472
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$454,054.00
Summary
Converting textiles waste to novel nanostructured porous carbon fibre . This project aims to develop innovative catalytic activation approaches for converting textiles waste to porous activated carbon fibre with potential application in energy storage and carbon capture. The project expects to address the key issue of textile upcycling and generate new knowledge in material science by revealing the principle of alkali metal-induced pore formation and carbon dot synthesis. Expected outcomes inclu ....Converting textiles waste to novel nanostructured porous carbon fibre . This project aims to develop innovative catalytic activation approaches for converting textiles waste to porous activated carbon fibre with potential application in energy storage and carbon capture. The project expects to address the key issue of textile upcycling and generate new knowledge in material science by revealing the principle of alkali metal-induced pore formation and carbon dot synthesis. Expected outcomes include advanced techniques to create value-added materials from recycling textiles waste and in-depth understanding of performance improvement mechanisms. Success will provide significant benefits in securing a sustainable future for Australia, ensuring valuable resources recovery and strategies for advanced manufacturing.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE230100338
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$448,721.00
Summary
Enabling solid state metal recycling with new numerical techniques. This project performs modelling to help develop an additive metal manufacturing process that makes use of scrap as input feed. It will develop new understanding of the key physical aspects of friction stir additive manufacturing and build a new efficient yet accurate continuum thermo-mechanical model for its simulation. This technology will enable metal deposition at rates an order of magnitude greater than conventional powder a ....Enabling solid state metal recycling with new numerical techniques. This project performs modelling to help develop an additive metal manufacturing process that makes use of scrap as input feed. It will develop new understanding of the key physical aspects of friction stir additive manufacturing and build a new efficient yet accurate continuum thermo-mechanical model for its simulation. This technology will enable metal deposition at rates an order of magnitude greater than conventional powder additive manufacturing methods. The new computational approach will be used to create processing and design maps. The work will facilitate greater use of high metal scrap and pave the way for more robust supply chains and new business models with application in automotive, mining, aerospace and military sectors.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
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE240100120
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$546,254.00
Summary
Powder Manufacturing Facility for Additive Manufacturing. This proposal aims to enhance Australian capability in advanced manufacturing by enabling academia and industry to access a new Powder Manufacturing Facility for Additive Manufacturing (AM) to produce and characterise metallic powders for AM. There is presently an urgent need to develop metallic powders specific to AM instead of relying on alloys that were developed for traditional processes and that are not performing optimally in AM due ....Powder Manufacturing Facility for Additive Manufacturing. This proposal aims to enhance Australian capability in advanced manufacturing by enabling academia and industry to access a new Powder Manufacturing Facility for Additive Manufacturing (AM) to produce and characterise metallic powders for AM. There is presently an urgent need to develop metallic powders specific to AM instead of relying on alloys that were developed for traditional processes and that are not performing optimally in AM due to the fundamental physical differences between modern and traditional manufacturing technologies. Additionally, within this new facility, investigations on recycling metal products into powders to be used in AM will be conducted, providing new opportunities to achieve a circular economy.Read moreRead less
Human-Robot Co-Evolution: Achieving the full potential of future workplaces. Physical human-robot systems are widely used to amplify the capability of human labourers and improve ergonomics in the workplace. This project aims to develop robot controllers that shape the co-evolution of these systems. Through physical human-robot interaction studies it will generate new knowledge of how humans adapt to working with robots, which will then be incorporated into the robot controller design. Expected ....Human-Robot Co-Evolution: Achieving the full potential of future workplaces. Physical human-robot systems are widely used to amplify the capability of human labourers and improve ergonomics in the workplace. This project aims to develop robot controllers that shape the co-evolution of these systems. Through physical human-robot interaction studies it will generate new knowledge of how humans adapt to working with robots, which will then be incorporated into the robot controller design. Expected outcomes include a better understanding of human adaptation and a systematic approach to shaping human-robot interaction over time. This should provide significant benefits across different skill and labour-intensive industries in Australia, such as improved worker productivity and safer human-robot collaboration.Read moreRead less