Stochastic Construction of Error Correcting Codes with Application to Digital Communications. Modern society would be unrecognisable without error correcting codes; mobile telephones, storage devices such as DVD's and high speed data communications simply would not exist. Yet most theoretical results on error correcting codes are asymptotic in nature and ignore computational complexity issues, that is, they are not representative of many real life situations. By building on recent breakthrough ....Stochastic Construction of Error Correcting Codes with Application to Digital Communications. Modern society would be unrecognisable without error correcting codes; mobile telephones, storage devices such as DVD's and high speed data communications simply would not exist. Yet most theoretical results on error correcting codes are asymptotic in nature and ignore computational complexity issues, that is, they are not representative of many real life situations. By building on recent breakthroughs in statistics and stochastic optimisation, this project will develop algorithms for designing optimised error correcting codes subject to realistic finite data length and computational complexity constraints. Successful outcomes will lead to enhanced data communications and storage, greatly benefiting industry and consumers alike.
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How do bees orchestrate smooth landings? The results should pave the way for the development of novel, biologically inspired strategies for the control of landing in unmanned aerial vehicles. Endowing aircraft with the capability of autonomous flight and landing has been a major challenge in engineering technology. There is now considerable interest, nationally and world wide, in the development of small, intelligent, autonomous airborne vehicles for application in a number of areas of defense, ....How do bees orchestrate smooth landings? The results should pave the way for the development of novel, biologically inspired strategies for the control of landing in unmanned aerial vehicles. Endowing aircraft with the capability of autonomous flight and landing has been a major challenge in engineering technology. There is now considerable interest, nationally and world wide, in the development of small, intelligent, autonomous airborne vehicles for application in a number of areas of defense, surveillance and space exploration. The proposed research will help Australia maintain a leading edge in uncovering important biological principles of flight control that can be translated into useful technological applications.Read moreRead less
Non-Parametric Modelling of Motion and Depth fields with Boundary Geometry for Scalable Compression and Dissemination. Applications for large format video surveillance are about to grow rapidly, starting with military applications and then moving into the civilian arena, highlighting the importance of compression for interactive dissemination, so as to make best use of limited communication channels. This project will develop an innovative representation for motion and depth/elevation maps, whi ....Non-Parametric Modelling of Motion and Depth fields with Boundary Geometry for Scalable Compression and Dissemination. Applications for large format video surveillance are about to grow rapidly, starting with military applications and then moving into the civilian arena, highlighting the importance of compression for interactive dissemination, so as to make best use of limited communication channels. This project will develop an innovative representation for motion and depth/elevation maps, which addresses a key obstacle in the deployment of technology for efficient interactive access to large format video and geospatial imagery. These applications are relevant to Australia's defence and infrastructure for smart information use. Moreover, this is a strategic proposal to strengthen Australia's existing lead in aspects of interactive media dissemination.Read moreRead less
Mathematical Foundations of Distributed Radar. Conventional military threats to Australia are large or fast moving objects such as ships and aircraft and conventional radar systems are designed to handle such threats. Recent global political shifts have changed the threats to include objects that are small and slowly moving, such as people, small vehicles and boats. Advances in radar hardware make feasible small, low-powered, devices with inherently reduced performance in comparison to deployed ....Mathematical Foundations of Distributed Radar. Conventional military threats to Australia are large or fast moving objects such as ships and aircraft and conventional radar systems are designed to handle such threats. Recent global political shifts have changed the threats to include objects that are small and slowly moving, such as people, small vehicles and boats. Advances in radar hardware make feasible small, low-powered, devices with inherently reduced performance in comparison to deployed systems. Methods for information integration over a dispersed system of such small devices, design of suitable waveform suites and clever local signal processing algorithms will be developed to achieve the performance improvements the hardware offers, to handle the new threats.Read moreRead less
Driving in the Fog: Speed Illusions Caused by Variations of Object Contrast. Accurate judgement of the speed of 3D motion is essential to many real world tasks, from driving a vehicle to playing sports. Illusions of perceived speed can occur when the range of brightness levels (ie. the contrast) is reduced, such as in fog, when suffering from cataracts, or when using some sunglasses. This raises issues of safety for drivers (pilots/captains etc). It is expected that advances in the understanding ....Driving in the Fog: Speed Illusions Caused by Variations of Object Contrast. Accurate judgement of the speed of 3D motion is essential to many real world tasks, from driving a vehicle to playing sports. Illusions of perceived speed can occur when the range of brightness levels (ie. the contrast) is reduced, such as in fog, when suffering from cataracts, or when using some sunglasses. This raises issues of safety for drivers (pilots/captains etc). It is expected that advances in the understanding of these effects will inform road safety policy and practice to benefit drivers and pedestrians and to guide the manufacturing of eyewear and display devices (eg. military heads-up-displays). It is also anticipated that this project will be able to answer the much-debated question 'What colour should cricket balls be?'
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Towards an Information Theory of Radar. Radar is a key sensing technology for the defence of Australia. It is also used in several civilian applications. Recent advances in engineering and science have led to significantly increased inherent capabilities for radar hardware. Nonetheless, radars in service and planned are unable to counter many current threats. To a large extent these new capabilities have yet to be fully exploited, and in large part this is because of the lack of an information ....Towards an Information Theory of Radar. Radar is a key sensing technology for the defence of Australia. It is also used in several civilian applications. Recent advances in engineering and science have led to significantly increased inherent capabilities for radar hardware. Nonetheless, radars in service and planned are unable to counter many current threats. To a large extent these new capabilities have yet to be fully exploited, and in large part this is because of the lack of an information theory for radar that corresponds to the highly successful theory of this kind for telecommunications. Our work, though pitched at fundamental ideas in the theory of radar, will lead to the production of improved radar capability that will permit improved threat detection and tracking.Read moreRead less
Honeybee Navigation: Low-level and Cognitive Mechanisms. Anyone watching a honeybee find its way back home effortlessly after flying several kilometres in search of nectar would know that these insects are excellent navigators, despite their diminutive brains and relatively simple nervous systems. The aim of this proposal is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms by which bees navigate repeatedly to an attractive food source, and recruit their nestmates to visit it. The findings should ....Honeybee Navigation: Low-level and Cognitive Mechanisms. Anyone watching a honeybee find its way back home effortlessly after flying several kilometres in search of nectar would know that these insects are excellent navigators, despite their diminutive brains and relatively simple nervous systems. The aim of this proposal is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms by which bees navigate repeatedly to an attractive food source, and recruit their nestmates to visit it. The findings should illuminate important principles of animal navigation, as well as suggest novel strategies for robot navigation.Read moreRead less
Honeybee Vision and navigation, and applications to robotics. Anyone observing a honeybee find its way home effortlessly after collecting nectar would know that these insects are excellent navigators, despite their diminutive brains and relatively simple nervous systems. One aim of this proposal is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underling honeybee navigation. Another aim is to apply some of these findings to the development of novel, biologically inspired naviagtion systems for ....Honeybee Vision and navigation, and applications to robotics. Anyone observing a honeybee find its way home effortlessly after collecting nectar would know that these insects are excellent navigators, despite their diminutive brains and relatively simple nervous systems. One aim of this proposal is to gain a better understanding of the mechanisms underling honeybee navigation. Another aim is to apply some of these findings to the development of novel, biologically inspired naviagtion systems for aircraft. The findings should illuminate important principles of animal navigation. They should also advance Australia's technology in the area of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), which will have important applications in national defence and security.Read moreRead less
Learning and memory in the honeybee: Task-dependent brain development. We wish to explore whether the development of specific brain regions in young bees depends upon the nature of the learning task in which they are engaged. We will examine tasks that involve two sensory modalities: olfaction and vision, both of which are important to successful foraging. The relative ease with which bees can be trained, and their nervous systems accessed, make them a very attractive subject in which to study f ....Learning and memory in the honeybee: Task-dependent brain development. We wish to explore whether the development of specific brain regions in young bees depends upon the nature of the learning task in which they are engaged. We will examine tasks that involve two sensory modalities: olfaction and vision, both of which are important to successful foraging. The relative ease with which bees can be trained, and their nervous systems accessed, make them a very attractive subject in which to study fundamental principles of learning and memory that may span a variety of organisms.Read moreRead less
Higher cognitive functions emerging from a small brain. The honeybee is becoming one of the most attractive model systems in which to study processes of learning, memory and cognition, given its rich and flexible behaviour, its relatively simple nervous system, and a genome that is on the verge of being sequenced. We intend to examine how bees learn rules, associations, concepts and categories, and to uncover some of the underlying neuronal substrates. The results should illuminate fundamental p ....Higher cognitive functions emerging from a small brain. The honeybee is becoming one of the most attractive model systems in which to study processes of learning, memory and cognition, given its rich and flexible behaviour, its relatively simple nervous system, and a genome that is on the verge of being sequenced. We intend to examine how bees learn rules, associations, concepts and categories, and to uncover some of the underlying neuronal substrates. The results should illuminate fundamental principles of cognitive function across a variety of animal species, and suggest novel approaches to artificial intelligence.Read moreRead less