The Legal Framework for International Cooperation in Maritime Enforcement Activities. The Project will analyse the gaps in the international framework to achieve cooperation in maritime enforcement and make recommendations for improvements to existing legislative arrangements to facilitate successful combat of international maritime criminal activity.The Project is timely because it addresses some long-standing national requirements to improve Australia's ability to adequately enforce its sovere ....The Legal Framework for International Cooperation in Maritime Enforcement Activities. The Project will analyse the gaps in the international framework to achieve cooperation in maritime enforcement and make recommendations for improvements to existing legislative arrangements to facilitate successful combat of international maritime criminal activity.The Project is timely because it addresses some long-standing national requirements to improve Australia's ability to adequately enforce its sovereign rights throughout its maritime zones of jurisdiction. The issues involved have taken on a greater contemporary significance in light of recent events, including the surge in illegal people smuggling into Australia, increased illegal fishing activity in Australia's Southern Ocean exclusive economic zone by highly organized criminal syndicates and heightened tensions with regard to maritime terrorism.
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New Generation Lead-free Piezoelectric Ceramics for Acoustic Sensor Technologies. Cooperative research between University of NSW and Thales Australia to design new Lead-free piezoceramics is of critical importance to Australia's strategic leadership in underwater acoustic technology. This area has been identified by the Department of Defence to be a critical defence capability and essential to Australia's exploration of oil, gas, and minerals. Improved and new transducer components will provide ....New Generation Lead-free Piezoelectric Ceramics for Acoustic Sensor Technologies. Cooperative research between University of NSW and Thales Australia to design new Lead-free piezoceramics is of critical importance to Australia's strategic leadership in underwater acoustic technology. This area has been identified by the Department of Defence to be a critical defence capability and essential to Australia's exploration of oil, gas, and minerals. Improved and new transducer components will provide significant economic benefit to Australia through increased export of sonar technology, particularly to Europe and all Restriction of Hazardous Substances (RoHS) compliant countries. The project will produce highly skilled graduates ensuring an on-going basis for Australia's future innovation in this area.Read moreRead less
Surface roughness and its effects on wall-bounded turbulence. Examples in engineering where turbulence is important are: wind tunnel model testing, numerical prediction of turbulent skin friction drag over an aircraft wing, turbulent forces and acoustic field around a submarine or a road vehicle, and the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. Turbulence may also be beneficial, for example, in improving engine combustion and decreasing pollutant emissions. Hence this study will have national ....Surface roughness and its effects on wall-bounded turbulence. Examples in engineering where turbulence is important are: wind tunnel model testing, numerical prediction of turbulent skin friction drag over an aircraft wing, turbulent forces and acoustic field around a submarine or a road vehicle, and the dispersion of pollutants in the atmosphere. Turbulence may also be beneficial, for example, in improving engine combustion and decreasing pollutant emissions. Hence this study will have national benefits in many scientific fields, for example, in fuel savings (economy and energy ), stability of road vehicles (safety and health), noise generation and acoustic signatures of submarines (transforming defence technology and safeguarding Australia).Read moreRead less
Cyclic Fatigue Mechanisms in New Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics. Piezoceramics are an important component in many items in modern day Australian life. However, they present a growing environmental concern, particularly for disposal, because they contain lead oxide and must often be disposed of prematurely due to component failure. Furthermore, many key Australian industries manufacture and use piezoceramics in fields ranging from mineral exploration, to imaging to biomedical devices. This proj ....Cyclic Fatigue Mechanisms in New Lead-Free Piezoelectric Ceramics. Piezoceramics are an important component in many items in modern day Australian life. However, they present a growing environmental concern, particularly for disposal, because they contain lead oxide and must often be disposed of prematurely due to component failure. Furthermore, many key Australian industries manufacture and use piezoceramics in fields ranging from mineral exploration, to imaging to biomedical devices. This project will enable the development of lead-free alternatives to current materials and more reliable materials which will reduce the need for waste disposal.Read moreRead less
Coordination control of underactuated ocean vehicles for ocean forecasting. Australia is surrounded by oceans. Ocean forecasting is essential for effective and efficient operations on and within the ocean for a number of applications such as coastal zone management, military operations and scientific research. The successful completion of this project promises to put Australia in a leading position in this area. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of this project, the project development will a ....Coordination control of underactuated ocean vehicles for ocean forecasting. Australia is surrounded by oceans. Ocean forecasting is essential for effective and efficient operations on and within the ocean for a number of applications such as coastal zone management, military operations and scientific research. The successful completion of this project promises to put Australia in a leading position in this area. Due to the multi-disciplinary nature of this project, the project development will also stimulate the development in many other areas such as new ocean vehicles, sensors and actuators, electronics and control.Read moreRead less
Development of Cyclic Fatigue Degradation Criteria for Piezoelectric Ceramic Components. Piezoelectric ceramics are widely used in advanced engineering applications such as actuators in the automotive industry, sonars for submarine mineral exploration and defence, and a broad range of medical devices, e.g. ultrasound probes. The reliable operational lifetime of these devices is, however, severely limited because they suffer cyclic fatigue leading to both degradation in performance and device fai ....Development of Cyclic Fatigue Degradation Criteria for Piezoelectric Ceramic Components. Piezoelectric ceramics are widely used in advanced engineering applications such as actuators in the automotive industry, sonars for submarine mineral exploration and defence, and a broad range of medical devices, e.g. ultrasound probes. The reliable operational lifetime of these devices is, however, severely limited because they suffer cyclic fatigue leading to both degradation in performance and device failure. The proposed project seeks to develop an understanding of the mechanisms of fatigue and develop a design model for engineers such that piezoelectric ceramic devices can be operated for longer periods with higher levels of reliability.Read moreRead less
Structure, Dynamics and Control of Wall-Bounded Turbulence. This research has immense impact in engineering and environmental science including aeronautical, mechanical, biomedical engineering, and meteorological science. The energy savings with reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from this research and economic benefits will impact directly on global climate change and a sustainable urban environment in Australia. This research will deliver technological advances in complex fl ....Structure, Dynamics and Control of Wall-Bounded Turbulence. This research has immense impact in engineering and environmental science including aeronautical, mechanical, biomedical engineering, and meteorological science. The energy savings with reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions resulting from this research and economic benefits will impact directly on global climate change and a sustainable urban environment in Australia. This research will deliver technological advances in complex fluid dynamics and instrumentation, in addition to new and exciting training opportunities for future generations of researchers and engineers. This project will secure Australian science and engineering as world leaders in the crucial area of Fluid Dynamics that influences our everyday lives.
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Forecasting wave breaking in directional seas. Wave breaking in Australia's coastal and open ocean regions has significant consequences for weather forecasting, marine safety, defence and renewable energy, yet no conceptual or computing framework exists for this fundamental process. This innovative project extends our recent advances in predicting wave breaking onset and strength of unidirectional wave groups to forecast breaking in realistic directional wind seas. The results of this project wi ....Forecasting wave breaking in directional seas. Wave breaking in Australia's coastal and open ocean regions has significant consequences for weather forecasting, marine safety, defence and renewable energy, yet no conceptual or computing framework exists for this fundamental process. This innovative project extends our recent advances in predicting wave breaking onset and strength of unidirectional wave groups to forecast breaking in realistic directional wind seas. The results of this project will provide the scientific basis needed to include reliable breaking wave information in forecast models, and will improve their accuracy. It will also increase the international competitiveness of Australian commerce reliant on accurate marine environmental forecasts.
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DEVELOPMENT OF NEW NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR TRAJECTORY TRACKING AND PATH-FOLLOWING OF UNDERACTUATED OCEAN VEHICLES. Trajectory tracking control and path-following of underactuated ocean vehicles are not only of theoretical challenging but also important practice. This project is firstly to develop methodologies to design full-state feedback controllers to force the underactuated ocean vehicles including surface ships and underwater vehicles with off-diagonal terms in their system matrices to tr ....DEVELOPMENT OF NEW NONLINEAR CONTROLLERS FOR TRAJECTORY TRACKING AND PATH-FOLLOWING OF UNDERACTUATED OCEAN VEHICLES. Trajectory tracking control and path-following of underactuated ocean vehicles are not only of theoretical challenging but also important practice. This project is firstly to develop methodologies to design full-state feedback controllers to force the underactuated ocean vehicles including surface ships and underwater vehicles with off-diagonal terms in their system matrices to track reference trajectories generated by virtual vehicles, and to follow a predefined path with a desired forward speed. Secondly, we develop methods to design observers to estimate the unmeasured states (velocities) of the vehicles and incorporate with the full-state feedback controllers to have output-feedback observer-based controllers. Lastly, the proposed control design methods are extended to a certain class of underactuated mechanical systems.Read moreRead less
Stochastic Sensor Scheduling in Statistical Signal Processing. In several statistical signal processing applications, due to computational or communication constraints, at each time instant one can use only a few out of several possible noisy (stochastic) sensors. The stochastic sensor scheduling problem deals with how to dynamically choose which group of sensors to pick at each time instant. This project involves research in sensor scheduling for widely used stochastic dynamical systems such as ....Stochastic Sensor Scheduling in Statistical Signal Processing. In several statistical signal processing applications, due to computational or communication constraints, at each time instant one can use only a few out of several possible noisy (stochastic) sensors. The stochastic sensor scheduling problem deals with how to dynamically choose which group of sensors to pick at each time instant. This project involves research in sensor scheduling for widely used stochastic dynamical systems such as Hidden Markov Models and Jump Markov Linear Systems. It focuses on the design and analysis of stochastic control algorithms such as dynamic programming and simulation based randomized methods. The research will lead to an integrated theory incorporating stochastic control, statistical signal processing and combinatorial optimization. We will also apply the resulting techniques to tracking maneuvering targets given noisy observations.Read moreRead less