Design and Control of Sensorless, Brushless, Linear Permanent Magnet Motors for Fluid Pumping. Many machines require reciprocating motion and achieve it by mechanical conversion of rotary motion. In particular, pistons for liquid pumping and gas compression are usually driven by a crank on a rotary electric motor. Driving the piston directly by a linear motor eliminates the cost, weight, inefficiency and wear of the mechanical conversion. This project will design, construct and test high efficie ....Design and Control of Sensorless, Brushless, Linear Permanent Magnet Motors for Fluid Pumping. Many machines require reciprocating motion and achieve it by mechanical conversion of rotary motion. In particular, pistons for liquid pumping and gas compression are usually driven by a crank on a rotary electric motor. Driving the piston directly by a linear motor eliminates the cost, weight, inefficiency and wear of the mechanical conversion. This project will design, construct and test high efficiency, tubular, linear permanent magnet motors for fluid pumping. Further, an intelligent electronic controller will be developed to control the motor speed and reversals without sensors in the motor. Initial applications will be solar powered water pumping and purification.Read moreRead less
Development of Low Cost High Performance Motor Drives for Electrical Appliances using New Soft Magnetic Composite Materials. This project aims to break the major barrier to commercial production of efficient electrical appliances by developing low cost high performance motor drives using new soft magnetic composite materials. Initial applications will be swimming pool/spa pump drives. Optimum material composition, novel motor topologies, intelligent variable speed drive, and motor manufacturing ....Development of Low Cost High Performance Motor Drives for Electrical Appliances using New Soft Magnetic Composite Materials. This project aims to break the major barrier to commercial production of efficient electrical appliances by developing low cost high performance motor drives using new soft magnetic composite materials. Initial applications will be swimming pool/spa pump drives. Optimum material composition, novel motor topologies, intelligent variable speed drive, and motor manufacturing techniques using mould injection/compaction will be developed to reduce the production cost with improved performance in collaboration with Waterco. The new technology will contribute to reduction of greenhouse gas emission by reducing energy consumption of electrical appliances and once commercialised will greatly enhance the competitiveness of Australian industry in the world market.Read moreRead less
High Efficiency Low Cost Low Noise Variable Speed Compressor Drive for Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Systems. This project aims to break the major barriers to the commercial production of efficient refrigerators and air conditioners by developing a high efficiency low cost low noise variable speed compressor drive. High performance PM motors, power electronic fault tolerant converters/inverters, and intelligent algorithms for motor control and temperature control will be developed to meet ....High Efficiency Low Cost Low Noise Variable Speed Compressor Drive for Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Systems. This project aims to break the major barriers to the commercial production of efficient refrigerators and air conditioners by developing a high efficiency low cost low noise variable speed compressor drive. High performance PM motors, power electronic fault tolerant converters/inverters, and intelligent algorithms for motor control and temperature control will be developed to meet the specific requirements of compressor drives in collaboration with Kirby Refrigeration. The new technology will contribute to the reduction of CO2 greenhouse gas emission by reducing the energy consumption of refrigerators and air conditioners and once commercialised will greatly enhance the competitiveness of Australian industry in the world market.Read moreRead less
Congestion management in key road networks of a major city through real time data collection, intelligent forecasting and real time routing. The project researches the issues for allowing Australian Road Traffic Authorities to automatically capture road traffic data, forecast traffic flows and smartly route traffic flows to avoid congestion on road networks. This will lead to several benefits, such as (a) reducing traffic congestion, shorten travel time and lower pollution, (b) better utilizati ....Congestion management in key road networks of a major city through real time data collection, intelligent forecasting and real time routing. The project researches the issues for allowing Australian Road Traffic Authorities to automatically capture road traffic data, forecast traffic flows and smartly route traffic flows to avoid congestion on road networks. This will lead to several benefits, such as (a) reducing traffic congestion, shorten travel time and lower pollution, (b) better utilization of existing road infrastructure by diffusing traffic to alternate routes, (c) provide economic benefit by allowing one to delay infrastructure expansion, (d) monitoring of aberrant behaviour by road users to ensure a safer road environment, and (e) improved flexibility in deployment of the Wireless Sensor Network to meet the needs of the road authorities and community.Read moreRead less
Vision Model Based Perceptual Digital Video Coding. Digital video coding and compression is an enabling technology and has diversified applications in audiovisual communications, multimedia computing, digital television broadcast and electronic entertainment industries. The project aims at spearheading research in theory, techniques and implementation of perceptual video coding in order to achieve constant and guaranteed quality in visual communications and services. It will explore a new appr ....Vision Model Based Perceptual Digital Video Coding. Digital video coding and compression is an enabling technology and has diversified applications in audiovisual communications, multimedia computing, digital television broadcast and electronic entertainment industries. The project aims at spearheading research in theory, techniques and implementation of perceptual video coding in order to achieve constant and guaranteed quality in visual communications and services. It will explore a new approach to digital video coding other than the constant bit rate coding techniques which have dominated digital video research for the past four decades. It will form a part of the theoretical foundation and principles for the next generation video coding and compression techniques, and may lead to new standards and practice.Read moreRead less
Identifying Malingered Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Biological Markers for Legal Assessment. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common psychiatric disorder that is claimed in compensation claims in Australia. There are currently no reliable means to distinguish malingered from genuine PTSD. This project aims to develop the most accurate means of identifying malingered PTSD by using the most recent technology to index biological responses, including fMRI, in participants with PT ....Identifying Malingered Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: Biological Markers for Legal Assessment. Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is the most common psychiatric disorder that is claimed in compensation claims in Australia. There are currently no reliable means to distinguish malingered from genuine PTSD. This project aims to develop the most accurate means of identifying malingered PTSD by using the most recent technology to index biological responses, including fMRI, in participants with PTSD, without PTSD, and malingered PTSD. This study will lead to a biological assessment that can objectively index PTSD and be resistant to intentional feigning. These data will significantly enhance legal assessments of PTSD and facilitate compensation resolution.Read moreRead less
Development of an Integrated Platform for Performance-Based Safety Assessment. Building fires are the cause of major fatalities and injuries amongst all types of accidental fires in Australia. With significant advancement in numerical simulation technique, computer models are becoming acceptable tools for fire safety designs. Nonetheless, these methods still suffer from large amount of manual inputs and lengthy computational times. This research project will address the prevalent deficiency in m ....Development of an Integrated Platform for Performance-Based Safety Assessment. Building fires are the cause of major fatalities and injuries amongst all types of accidental fires in Australia. With significant advancement in numerical simulation technique, computer models are becoming acceptable tools for fire safety designs. Nonetheless, these methods still suffer from large amount of manual inputs and lengthy computational times. This research project will address the prevalent deficiency in many of these computer models and develop a novel and innovative design methodology. The success of this project will revolutionize the computational tools for the industry realizing a convenient, robust and time-saving integrated platform catering for increasing future market demand.Read moreRead less
Computational Intelligence for Complex Structured Data. This project aims to use computational intelligence techniques to reliably learn adaptive natural human pointing and gestures to control an interface on a pseudo-3D display. Highly complex data with interconnections between elements is hard to visualise on screens. Most current tools are operated using point/click/drag on 2D screens. The physical technology to capture appropriate human behaviours exists already, but not the adaptive learnin ....Computational Intelligence for Complex Structured Data. This project aims to use computational intelligence techniques to reliably learn adaptive natural human pointing and gestures to control an interface on a pseudo-3D display. Highly complex data with interconnections between elements is hard to visualise on screens. Most current tools are operated using point/click/drag on 2D screens. The physical technology to capture appropriate human behaviours exists already, but not the adaptive learning of the syntax and semantics of individual gestures and actions, nor the multi-gesture information fusion required for understanding, which could significantly enhance efficiency, for example, in sorting through named entities in an investigation. All of this is done naturally by most human beings, using biological neural networks.Read moreRead less
Enhanced Analysis of Time Dependent Viscous Behaviour of Soft Clay. Often post construction settlements of structures overlying clayey soils have been observed to be more than those predicted, or the predicted rate of settlement is not correct. The main benefit of this research is providing an accurate but simplified approach, which can be used by practicing engineers to predict the post construction settlement of structures in the design phase of construction projects. The community can conside ....Enhanced Analysis of Time Dependent Viscous Behaviour of Soft Clay. Often post construction settlements of structures overlying clayey soils have been observed to be more than those predicted, or the predicted rate of settlement is not correct. The main benefit of this research is providing an accurate but simplified approach, which can be used by practicing engineers to predict the post construction settlement of structures in the design phase of construction projects. The community can considerably benefit from the findings of this project including safer structures, significant reduction in the future maintenance costs and enhancing the performance of bridges, buildings, roads, railways and dams with less cracks and differential settlement.Read moreRead less
Collaborative Sensing and Learning for Maritime Situational Awareness. We aim to demonstrate coordinated autonomous sensing of naval assets in dynamic maritime environments, reducing the operational load required to deliver a high quality maritime situational awareness. A realistic simulation based approach will help us develop novel artificial intelligence technology including: self-adaptive strategies for dynamic asset allocation, embedded smart sensing capabilities for naval observation syste ....Collaborative Sensing and Learning for Maritime Situational Awareness. We aim to demonstrate coordinated autonomous sensing of naval assets in dynamic maritime environments, reducing the operational load required to deliver a high quality maritime situational awareness. A realistic simulation based approach will help us develop novel artificial intelligence technology including: self-adaptive strategies for dynamic asset allocation, embedded smart sensing capabilities for naval observation systems and novel approaches to continuous collaborative learning from multi-spectral media. In addition to the emerging partnership between participants, the project will advance sovereign capability to develop maritime intelligence gathering technology for the Royal Australian Navy to underpin stability in our region. Read moreRead less