Action selection in insects: how a microbrain knows what to do. Identifying what to do demands integrating sensory information with our current physiological state and memory of past experience to select the best possible action. This is the action selection problem. Our project aims to discover how tiny insect brains solve this fundamental problem. The project combines neural recordings from animals exploring virtual reality, behavioural analyses and computational modelling. The expected outco ....Action selection in insects: how a microbrain knows what to do. Identifying what to do demands integrating sensory information with our current physiological state and memory of past experience to select the best possible action. This is the action selection problem. Our project aims to discover how tiny insect brains solve this fundamental problem. The project combines neural recordings from animals exploring virtual reality, behavioural analyses and computational modelling. The expected outcome is a new understanding of the brain as an effective behavioural control system. This will benefit systems and comparative neuroscience. Our findings may also inspire solutions for robotic systems that must operate autonomously in remote and challenging environments such as disaster relief or exploration.Read moreRead less
Life or death decisions: making fast, accurate choices in a complex world. This project aims to understand how hoverflies and honey bees, with tiny brains and sensory systems, excel at making fast and accurate decisions while on the fly in a complex world. The project will combine brain recordings with flight analyses and computational modelling to generate new knowledge on how animals may utilize movements to simplify information sampling. Expected outcomes are a novel, comprehensive understand ....Life or death decisions: making fast, accurate choices in a complex world. This project aims to understand how hoverflies and honey bees, with tiny brains and sensory systems, excel at making fast and accurate decisions while on the fly in a complex world. The project will combine brain recordings with flight analyses and computational modelling to generate new knowledge on how animals may utilize movements to simplify information sampling. Expected outcomes are a novel, comprehensive understanding of how animal movements could enhance decision speed and accuracy. This should provide substantial benefits for neuroscience, and for enhancing performance of autonomous robotic systems operating in challenging environments, such as disaster relief, mining and remote exploration. Read moreRead less
Creating perceptual experts in Australia's policing and security agencies. This project aims to create the next generation of experts in Australia’s policing and national security agencies, by improving crime scene evidence interpretation. Agencies are under pressure to develop more rigorous training practices that go beyond mere intuition and tradition. This project will use a novel approach that directs learning toward the most diagnostic perceptual cues. Expected outcomes include a solid empi ....Creating perceptual experts in Australia's policing and security agencies. This project aims to create the next generation of experts in Australia’s policing and national security agencies, by improving crime scene evidence interpretation. Agencies are under pressure to develop more rigorous training practices that go beyond mere intuition and tradition. This project will use a novel approach that directs learning toward the most diagnostic perceptual cues. Expected outcomes include a solid empirical basis for national training programs designed to create experts that are accurate, reliable, and continuously improving. Improving the training of experts will ensure the integrity of forensics as evidentiary tools available to police, lead to more reliable courtroom convictions and help safeguard Australia from terrorism and crime.Read moreRead less
What Can You Trust in the Large and Noisy Web? This project will develop innovative techniques to efficiently and effectively distill truthful information from the inherently unreliable and large-scale Web environment, where misinformation has been widely regarded as a grand challenge for the next decade. The results of this project will not only maintain Australia’s leadership in this frontier research area, but also support many important applications that safeguard Australian people and econo ....What Can You Trust in the Large and Noisy Web? This project will develop innovative techniques to efficiently and effectively distill truthful information from the inherently unreliable and large-scale Web environment, where misinformation has been widely regarded as a grand challenge for the next decade. The results of this project will not only maintain Australia’s leadership in this frontier research area, but also support many important applications that safeguard Australian people and economy such as emergency and disaster management and online healthcare. This project also serves as an excellent vehicle for the education and training of Australia’s next generation of scholars and engineers.Read moreRead less
Designing the next generation of geosynthetic liner systems . The project aims to improve the effectiveness of geosynthetic liner systems to contain emerging contaminants such as per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) for better protection of Australian groundwater resources. The project expects to experimentally validate theory to improve predictive models for performance of geosynthetic liner systems. Expected outcomes include new and updated design guidelines for effective environmental ....Designing the next generation of geosynthetic liner systems . The project aims to improve the effectiveness of geosynthetic liner systems to contain emerging contaminants such as per-and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) for better protection of Australian groundwater resources. The project expects to experimentally validate theory to improve predictive models for performance of geosynthetic liner systems. Expected outcomes include new and updated design guidelines for effective environmental protection against PFASs and establishment of new approaches for predicting functional containment lifetimes of liner systems. These outcomes are expected to benefit the waste and remediation industries by influencing next-generation design regulations to ensure long-term environmental protection from PFAS.Read moreRead less
Industrial Transformation Training Centres - Grant ID: IC170100008
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$4,459,672.00
Summary
ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production. The ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production aims to tackle challenges to wine production through innovative, multi-disciplinary research. Australia’s grape and wine industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, yet in some areas profitability is low. Reasons include extreme weather events, soil salinity and diseases, inefficient practices, a low level of technological innovation and high input costs. New technologies and process effic ....ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production. The ARC Training Centre for Innovative Wine Production aims to tackle challenges to wine production through innovative, multi-disciplinary research. Australia’s grape and wine industry is a multi-billion dollar industry, yet in some areas profitability is low. Reasons include extreme weather events, soil salinity and diseases, inefficient practices, a low level of technological innovation and high input costs. New technologies and process efficiencies developed as part of this project will reduce environmental impact, drive production costs down and profits and employment up. The project will mount a suite of industry-led projects to deliver outcomes to boost Australia’s competitiveness as a supplier of sustainably-produced premium branded wine to the world.Read moreRead less
Context and Activity Recognition for Personalised Behaviour Recommendation. The Internet of Things (IoT) together with the rising popularity of smartphones opens a new world for many exciting opportunities. The overall goal of this project is to develop new algorithms and data analytical techniques in an IoT environment that can accurately monitor and analyse personalised daily activities on a continuous, real-time basis. The expected result of this project will support many critical application ....Context and Activity Recognition for Personalised Behaviour Recommendation. The Internet of Things (IoT) together with the rising popularity of smartphones opens a new world for many exciting opportunities. The overall goal of this project is to develop new algorithms and data analytical techniques in an IoT environment that can accurately monitor and analyse personalised daily activities on a continuous, real-time basis. The expected result of this project will support many critical applications such as better wellness tracking and lifestyle-related illness prevention, which will be particularly critical to Australia's aging population. This project will also serve as a vehicle to educate and train Australia’s young scholars and engineers.Read moreRead less
Early Career Industry Fellowships - Grant ID: IE230100119
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$427,111.00
Summary
Towards Internet of Things Enabled Automated Mushroom Cultivation. This project aims to develop novel Internet-of-Things based learning techniques to inform the design and construction of a portable, automated system for the cultivation of mushrooms. The expected outcomes are a portable smart mushroom cultivation system that provides access to new agriculture techniques and local, fresh supplies in rural and remote areas; learning algorithms that detect mushroom ripeness and set the best environ ....Towards Internet of Things Enabled Automated Mushroom Cultivation. This project aims to develop novel Internet-of-Things based learning techniques to inform the design and construction of a portable, automated system for the cultivation of mushrooms. The expected outcomes are a portable smart mushroom cultivation system that provides access to new agriculture techniques and local, fresh supplies in rural and remote areas; learning algorithms that detect mushroom ripeness and set the best environmental parameters; and a dataset of mushroom cultivation parameters. These products, and associated training opportunities through a strong focus on public and industry engagement, will benefit the industry partners and horticultural producers to improve resource efficiency, waste reduction, and overall yield.Read moreRead less