Patient-specific Computational Tools for Diagnosing and Treating Gait Disorders in Children with Cerebral Palsy. This proposal addresses one of the most fundamental and difficult questions related to the treatment of children with cerebral palsy: Why do these children walk in a crouched position, with excessively bent hips and knees? High-fidelity, patient-specific computer simulations of walking can help to answer this question and, in so doing, can improve the outcomes of orthopaedic surgeries ....Patient-specific Computational Tools for Diagnosing and Treating Gait Disorders in Children with Cerebral Palsy. This proposal addresses one of the most fundamental and difficult questions related to the treatment of children with cerebral palsy: Why do these children walk in a crouched position, with excessively bent hips and knees? High-fidelity, patient-specific computer simulations of walking can help to answer this question and, in so doing, can improve the outcomes of orthopaedic surgeries designed to correct movement abnormalities in these patients. Realistic computer simulations of human movement can play a pivotal role in healthcare through patient rehabilitation; in sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and in entertainment, through the creation of video games and animated films.Read moreRead less
Non-invasive assessment of hip fracture risk in elderly people. No falls, no fractures - this will be the main benefit of the proposed research. The most significant outcome will be new computational tools to improve current understanding of the biomechanics of falls and bone fragility in elderly people, which, in turn, will help to reduce healthcare costs associated with the treatment and management of hip fractures. Realistic models and computer simulations of human movement can play a pivota ....Non-invasive assessment of hip fracture risk in elderly people. No falls, no fractures - this will be the main benefit of the proposed research. The most significant outcome will be new computational tools to improve current understanding of the biomechanics of falls and bone fragility in elderly people, which, in turn, will help to reduce healthcare costs associated with the treatment and management of hip fractures. Realistic models and computer simulations of human movement can play a pivotal role in three of Australia's largest industries: healthcare, through the diagnosis and treatment of movement disorders; sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and entertainment, through the development of video/digital games and animated films.Read moreRead less
A Control Systems Approach for Understanding Human Locomotion. This proposal addresses fundamental, difficult questions in the context of human movement: How do muscles move our limbs during walking? How do the nervous system and muscles work together to control movement? Realistic computer simulations of human movement can help answer these questions and, in so doing, can play a pivotal role in three of Australia's largest industries: healthcare, through clinical gait analysis and gait rehabili ....A Control Systems Approach for Understanding Human Locomotion. This proposal addresses fundamental, difficult questions in the context of human movement: How do muscles move our limbs during walking? How do the nervous system and muscles work together to control movement? Realistic computer simulations of human movement can help answer these questions and, in so doing, can play a pivotal role in three of Australia's largest industries: healthcare, through clinical gait analysis and gait rehabilitation (diagnosis and treatment of movement disorders); sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and entertainment, through the development of video/digital games and animated films (creation of virtual life-like actors).Read moreRead less
Patient-specific computational tools for evaluating functional performance of total knee replacements in vivo. Knee replacement surgery is the established treatment for end-stage osteoarthritis. This proposal addresses one of the most fundamental questions related to knee replacement surgery: Why do total knee replacements fail? High-fidelity, patient-specific computer simulations of walking can help to answer this question and, in so doing, can improve the functional performance and longevity o ....Patient-specific computational tools for evaluating functional performance of total knee replacements in vivo. Knee replacement surgery is the established treatment for end-stage osteoarthritis. This proposal addresses one of the most fundamental questions related to knee replacement surgery: Why do total knee replacements fail? High-fidelity, patient-specific computer simulations of walking can help to answer this question and, in so doing, can improve the functional performance and longevity of current knee implant designs. Realistic computer simulations of human movement also can play a pivotal role in healthcare through patient rehabilitation; in sports, through the development of personalized training programs for elite athletes; and in entertainment, through the creation of video games and animated films.Read moreRead less
Advanced control and estimation strategies for electromechanical brake-by-wire systems. The project aims to investigate the application of advanced control and estimation techniques (robust nonlinear and soft-computing approaches) to the problem of maximising the effectiveness of electromechanical brake-by-wire systems in emergency braking manoeuvres. The work will be conducted using state-of-the-art control design and hardware-in-the loop simulation facilities in the Research Centre for Advance ....Advanced control and estimation strategies for electromechanical brake-by-wire systems. The project aims to investigate the application of advanced control and estimation techniques (robust nonlinear and soft-computing approaches) to the problem of maximising the effectiveness of electromechanical brake-by-wire systems in emergency braking manoeuvres. The work will be conducted using state-of-the-art control design and hardware-in-the loop simulation facilities in the Research Centre for Advanced By-Wire Technologies (RABiT), which has been established to accelerate the development and commercialisation of by-wire technology in Australia. Expected outcomes are actuator and road friction control algorithms which have been demonstrated to be robust in the context of real-world actuator and vehicle dynamics.Read moreRead less
Analysis and design of control systems with saturation and time-delay. Control engineering is an enabling technology without which most modern engineering systems, such as aircrafts or Internet, can not operate properly. Actuator saturation and time-delays are undesirable phenomena that often arise in control systems leading to poor performance and sometimes instability. For example, both of these phenomena arise in control of modern telecommunication systems, such as Active Queue Management in ....Analysis and design of control systems with saturation and time-delay. Control engineering is an enabling technology without which most modern engineering systems, such as aircrafts or Internet, can not operate properly. Actuator saturation and time-delays are undesirable phenomena that often arise in control systems leading to poor performance and sometimes instability. For example, both of these phenomena arise in control of modern telecommunication systems, such as Active Queue Management in TCP networks. The project aims at tackling these phenomena by using recently developed techniques in antiwindup for saturating actuators and by revisiting some classical methods for Smith predictor design for time-delayed systems.Read moreRead less
Efficient and Fair Traffic Control for a Multi-Service Internet. Australia relies very heavily on its
telecommunications infrastructure due to its
geographic dispersion. For the same reason,
it cannot afford to invest in inefficient infrastructure.
Our novel and practical Internet congestion control scheme will overcome current weaknesses in the Internet, and will enable the Australian telecommunication service industry to provide a better quality of service to the customers (including Aust ....Efficient and Fair Traffic Control for a Multi-Service Internet. Australia relies very heavily on its
telecommunications infrastructure due to its
geographic dispersion. For the same reason,
it cannot afford to invest in inefficient infrastructure.
Our novel and practical Internet congestion control scheme will overcome current weaknesses in the Internet, and will enable the Australian telecommunication service industry to provide a better quality of service to the customers (including Australian industries and rural communities) and at lower cost. This project will put Australia on the international stage as a leading contributor to Internet technology. We will provide training for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows in the important area of Internet traffic engineering and control.Read moreRead less
Mathematical, logical and computational foundations of hybrid control systems, and their application to design and synthesis problems in control engineering. Hybrid control systems are mathematical models of heterogeneous systems consisting of digital computer components interacting in real-time with continuous physical processes. Their many engineering applications include air traffic control, medical technology and automated transport. Motivated by such safety-critical and high-confidence appl ....Mathematical, logical and computational foundations of hybrid control systems, and their application to design and synthesis problems in control engineering. Hybrid control systems are mathematical models of heterogeneous systems consisting of digital computer components interacting in real-time with continuous physical processes. Their many engineering applications include air traffic control, medical technology and automated transport. Motivated by such safety-critical and high-confidence applications, the project aims to develop a unified framework of mathematical logics adequate to formally represent and reason about the structure, behaviour, and properties of hybrid control systems, and use this to develop methodologies for automatically synthesising hybrid control programs that are provably correct with respect to their specifications. Other outcomes include prototype software implementations of hybrid controller design tools.Read moreRead less
Congestion Control for the Future Internet. Australia relies very much on its telecommunications infrastructure due to its geographic dispersion. Our novel and practical Internet congestion control scheme will overcome current weaknesses in the Internet, and will enable the Australian telecommunication service industry to provide a better quality of service to the customers (including Australia industries and rural communities) and at lower cost. This project will put Australia on the internati ....Congestion Control for the Future Internet. Australia relies very much on its telecommunications infrastructure due to its geographic dispersion. Our novel and practical Internet congestion control scheme will overcome current weaknesses in the Internet, and will enable the Australian telecommunication service industry to provide a better quality of service to the customers (including Australia industries and rural communities) and at lower cost. This project will put Australia on the international stage as an leading contributor to Internet technology. We will provide training for PhD students and the management of postdoctoral fellows in the important area of Internet traffic engineering and control.
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Finite-dimensional Sampled-data Control of Nonlinear Spatially Distributed Parameter Systems. Optical communication networks, smart materials and fluid flows, are all examples of systems whose behaviour can be significantly improved by automatic control. These are identified as some of the key technologies that will shape our future. This project will contribute to the fundamental science and engineering design of such diverse systems. Two postdoctoral fellows and one graduate student will be t ....Finite-dimensional Sampled-data Control of Nonlinear Spatially Distributed Parameter Systems. Optical communication networks, smart materials and fluid flows, are all examples of systems whose behaviour can be significantly improved by automatic control. These are identified as some of the key technologies that will shape our future. This project will contribute to the fundamental science and engineering design of such diverse systems. Two postdoctoral fellows and one graduate student will be trained in this important emerging field.Read moreRead less