Organic Bionics: Soft Materials to Solve Hard Problems in Neuroengineering. This project aims to combine innovations in organic conductors, nanotechnology, 3D biofabrication and neuroengineering to develop a bioelectronic system capable of wireless neuromodulation with unprecedented stability and precision. This project expects to generate new knowledge regarding the properties of materials that promote optical neuromodulation and new strategies to obtain long-term material stability in biologic ....Organic Bionics: Soft Materials to Solve Hard Problems in Neuroengineering. This project aims to combine innovations in organic conductors, nanotechnology, 3D biofabrication and neuroengineering to develop a bioelectronic system capable of wireless neuromodulation with unprecedented stability and precision. This project expects to generate new knowledge regarding the properties of materials that promote optical neuromodulation and new strategies to obtain long-term material stability in biological environments. The expected outcome is to generate new material design rules to facilitate wireless neuromodulation technologies in biomedical engineering. The project will position Australia as a leader in bionic devices by creating a new 3D bioprinting hub for low-cost fabrication of bioelectronic systems.Read moreRead less
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
Meshless, numerical modelling for polymer processing. The new modelling technology will significantly improve Australian polymer producers' competitiveness and their ability to respond to international market forces. The technology will lead to new opportunities for Australian companies that develop simulation software. Our consumers will benefit from improvements in the design of polymer products. Our researchers in rheology and computational mechanics will gain further opportunities to extend ....Meshless, numerical modelling for polymer processing. The new modelling technology will significantly improve Australian polymer producers' competitiveness and their ability to respond to international market forces. The technology will lead to new opportunities for Australian companies that develop simulation software. Our consumers will benefit from improvements in the design of polymer products. Our researchers in rheology and computational mechanics will gain further opportunities to extend the advances this project will make.Read moreRead less
Hardware Acceleration for Neural Systems. To really understand how brains work, we need to simulate neural networks of a size similar to that of the human brain (100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections). Simulating such a network on standard computers in not possible because of its sheer size. Several groups are currently building very expensive and proprietary hardware to solve this, but the output from these projects will not be accessible to other researchers. In order to make real prog ....Hardware Acceleration for Neural Systems. To really understand how brains work, we need to simulate neural networks of a size similar to that of the human brain (100 billion neurons, 100 trillion connections). Simulating such a network on standard computers in not possible because of its sheer size. Several groups are currently building very expensive and proprietary hardware to solve this, but the output from these projects will not be accessible to other researchers. In order to make real progress in neuroscience, many more researchers need to be enabled to participate. To do this, the project will build a system from commercial hardware (FPGAs) that will cost only a few ten thousand dollars and it will make this design and software available for free. Read moreRead less
A novel and efficient approach for optimisation involving iterative solvers. Computationally expensive simulations involving iterative solvers are increasingly being used in industry to assess performance of products and processes. Repeated use of such simulations is necessary to identify optimum solutions. Even with today's computing power, many such tasks remain computationally prohibitive. This project presents a novel approach to solve optimisation problems involving iterative solvers with l ....A novel and efficient approach for optimisation involving iterative solvers. Computationally expensive simulations involving iterative solvers are increasingly being used in industry to assess performance of products and processes. Repeated use of such simulations is necessary to identify optimum solutions. Even with today's computing power, many such tasks remain computationally prohibitive. This project presents a novel approach to solve optimisation problems involving iterative solvers with limited computing budget. A wide range of industries involved in product and process design would gain a significant competitive advantage from this unique technical innovation. In addition, this technology will be invaluable to uncover and understand complex natural phenomena.Read moreRead less
Evolutionary computation for expensive bilevel multiobjective problems. This project aims to develop an evolutionary computation framework to solve computationally expensive bilevel multiobjective problems. The research is fundamental in nature and will address key open challenges in solving such problems, including hierarchical decision-making, multiple performance criteria, uncertainties and computational expense. The proposed research has applications in diverse domains such as environmental ....Evolutionary computation for expensive bilevel multiobjective problems. This project aims to develop an evolutionary computation framework to solve computationally expensive bilevel multiobjective problems. The research is fundamental in nature and will address key open challenges in solving such problems, including hierarchical decision-making, multiple performance criteria, uncertainties and computational expense. The proposed research has applications in diverse domains such as environmental policy formulation, network design, engineering, defence and cybersecurity; offering significant benefits to the researchers and practitioners in these fields. In addition to research outputs, it will strengthen international collaboration and build research capacity to put Australia at the forefront of this research.
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Evolutionary computation for robust multi-objective engineering design. This project aims to develop an evolutionary computation framework for robust multi-objective design, a critical pursuit in engineering industries. Such problems are characterised by multiple conflicting performance objectives
and constraints which are highly nonlinear, often black-box, and prone to unavoidable real-life uncertainties. The existing evolutionary algorithms are often computationally impractical and have a numb ....Evolutionary computation for robust multi-objective engineering design. This project aims to develop an evolutionary computation framework for robust multi-objective design, a critical pursuit in engineering industries. Such problems are characterised by multiple conflicting performance objectives
and constraints which are highly nonlinear, often black-box, and prone to unavoidable real-life uncertainties. The existing evolutionary algorithms are often computationally impractical and have a number of fundamental
shortcomings which restrict their use in real applications. This project aims to investigate and overcome the underlying key challenges to advance knowledge and contribute towards diverse domains such as energy, transport and space research, helping deliver high quality robust designs.
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Development of methods and algorithms to support multidisciplinary optimisation. This project will aim to develop a number of novel and computationally efficient schemes to deal with the key challenges facing multidisciplinary optimisation. These advancements will allow us to solve a number of challenging and intractable problems in science and engineering.