Designing for Safe and Durable Structures. This project creates advanced concepts and tools for the analysis/design of new structures, and structural modifications with safety and durability constraints. It involves the marriage of the alternative finite element techniques, for assessing durability, recent developments in structural optimisations, and advances in parallel processing techniques. This project builds on the applicants recent pioneering work, one of which won the best paper award ....Designing for Safe and Durable Structures. This project creates advanced concepts and tools for the analysis/design of new structures, and structural modifications with safety and durability constraints. It involves the marriage of the alternative finite element techniques, for assessing durability, recent developments in structural optimisations, and advances in parallel processing techniques. This project builds on the applicants recent pioneering work, one of which won the best paper award at the 2nd Australasian Conference on Applied Mechanics. By marrying the skills associated with three internationally recognised key researchers this proposal represents a major advance in the basic understanding of structural optimisation and creates unique research linkages.Read moreRead less
Fluid physics of cold gas-dynamic spray process. Cold gas-dynamic spray has the potential to revitalize and revolutionize the Australian manufacturing sector and economy. It is a technologically advanced flexible free-forming process with potential applications in the aviation, automotive, naval and bio-medical sectors. It allows for the design of functional surfaces from the nano-scale to the macro-scale that can be manufactured by spraying material coatings of arbitrary thickness and density o ....Fluid physics of cold gas-dynamic spray process. Cold gas-dynamic spray has the potential to revitalize and revolutionize the Australian manufacturing sector and economy. It is a technologically advanced flexible free-forming process with potential applications in the aviation, automotive, naval and bio-medical sectors. It allows for the design of functional surfaces from the nano-scale to the macro-scale that can be manufactured by spraying material coatings of arbitrary thickness and density on a substrate. The process of the spray particle delivery is crucial and not understood. This research will investigate the fluid physics and spray particle physics to gain the essential understanding necessary to make this process energy efficient and extend its range of application.Read moreRead less
Dynamic Simulation of Gear and Bearing Interactions in Gearboxes for Improved Diagnostics and Prognostics of Faults. The techniques to be developed in this project should become the international standard for diagnostic and prognostic techniques for high speed gearboxes, and improve the performance of Australian industry. Australia being a major supplier of natural resources, with many mines in remote locations, it is heavily dependent on machine condition monitoring techniques, such as those be ....Dynamic Simulation of Gear and Bearing Interactions in Gearboxes for Improved Diagnostics and Prognostics of Faults. The techniques to be developed in this project should become the international standard for diagnostic and prognostic techniques for high speed gearboxes, and improve the performance of Australian industry. Australia being a major supplier of natural resources, with many mines in remote locations, it is heavily dependent on machine condition monitoring techniques, such as those being developed in the project, to maximise output and minimise the likelihood of catastrophic failure. The techniques also give improved safety, for example of helicopters, which are suspended from the gearbox, making it a very critical component. This will be of considerable benefit to both civil and military operators of helicopters, both important to Australia.Read moreRead less
Analysis and Design of Networked Control Systems. Drive-by-wire cars, fly-by-wire aircraft and sensor/actuator wireless networks in process and manufacturing industries are just a few examples of emerging networked control technologies that are currently reshaping our world. These technological advances have a vast potential to reduce the cost, weight and volume of engineered systems, simplify their maintenance and installation and their novel architectures and features may enable us to address ....Analysis and Design of Networked Control Systems. Drive-by-wire cars, fly-by-wire aircraft and sensor/actuator wireless networks in process and manufacturing industries are just a few examples of emerging networked control technologies that are currently reshaping our world. These technological advances have a vast potential to reduce the cost, weight and volume of engineered systems, simplify their maintenance and installation and their novel architectures and features may enable us to address significant environmental and socio-economic challenges, such as an increased demand for energy and other limited resources. This project will develop a systematic design methodology for networked control systems that will be essential in ensuring that its full potential is exploited.Read moreRead less
Non-linear dynamics of magnetic bearing systems. The aim of this project is to gain a much deeper insight into the effects of non-linearities on the dynamic behavior and on the performance of active magnetic bearings(AMBs). This project will focus attention on stability analysis, bifurcation control, malfunction analysis, and nonlinear dynamic behavior. The expected outcomes are better understanding and prediction of nonlinear behavior and control of AMBs and improved guidelines for designing sa ....Non-linear dynamics of magnetic bearing systems. The aim of this project is to gain a much deeper insight into the effects of non-linearities on the dynamic behavior and on the performance of active magnetic bearings(AMBs). This project will focus attention on stability analysis, bifurcation control, malfunction analysis, and nonlinear dynamic behavior. The expected outcomes are better understanding and prediction of nonlinear behavior and control of AMBs and improved guidelines for designing safer and more effective AMBs.Read moreRead less
Development of a High Integrity Airborne Navigation Sensor for Aviation Communities using Terrestrial Based Infrastructure. The widespread adoption of GPS for aviation, which will allow safer and cheaper air-travel, is hindered by the lack of integrity (truth) information in the system. This research will develop new methodologies, based on low-cost MEMS sensors, to improve the integrity availability of the GPS when augmented with the Ground-based Regional GPS Augmentation System (GRAS). These m ....Development of a High Integrity Airborne Navigation Sensor for Aviation Communities using Terrestrial Based Infrastructure. The widespread adoption of GPS for aviation, which will allow safer and cheaper air-travel, is hindered by the lack of integrity (truth) information in the system. This research will develop new methodologies, based on low-cost MEMS sensors, to improve the integrity availability of the GPS when augmented with the Ground-based Regional GPS Augmentation System (GRAS). These methodologies will be used in the development of next generation airborne navigation sensors. The work builds on the world-leading position that Airservices Australia has made in the development of the GRAS, the navigation expertise of GPSat Systems and the GPS expertise of the QUT.Read moreRead less
Model-Reduction Techniques for Control, Communication and Circuits. Model reduction is an important area of study in the analysis and design of dynamical systems. Its objective is to obtain a low-order model given a high-order system model such that the low-order model closely approximates the input-output behaviour of the original high-order system. Although theory and application of model reduction is well developed, there are many unresolved issues such as efficient model reduction techniq ....Model-Reduction Techniques for Control, Communication and Circuits. Model reduction is an important area of study in the analysis and design of dynamical systems. Its objective is to obtain a low-order model given a high-order system model such that the low-order model closely approximates the input-output behaviour of the original high-order system. Although theory and application of model reduction is well developed, there are many unresolved issues such as efficient model reduction techniques for large-scale circuit simulation and communication applications, frequency-weighted model reduction techniques for controller-design applications, and error bounds for the reduction techniques. The project aims to address these issues.Read moreRead less
A New Parallel Robot with breakthrough performance for Manufacturing of Aerospace Components - kinematic and dynamic synthesis, design optimisation and prototyping. The Gantry-Tau is a new parallel type robot manipulator that will have the large workspace benefit of traditional Gantry robots in addition to stiffness and accuracy benefits well beyond the capabilities of existing robots. Preliminary results have shown that the Gantry-Tau can become the most accurate Gantry manipulator to date, wit ....A New Parallel Robot with breakthrough performance for Manufacturing of Aerospace Components - kinematic and dynamic synthesis, design optimisation and prototyping. The Gantry-Tau is a new parallel type robot manipulator that will have the large workspace benefit of traditional Gantry robots in addition to stiffness and accuracy benefits well beyond the capabilities of existing robots. Preliminary results have shown that the Gantry-Tau can become the most accurate Gantry manipulator to date, with the potential of competing with dedicated machines in the manufacturing industry. The expected project outcome is a working prototype of the Gantry-Tau demonstrating machining performance on aerospace components, publications in high-ranked conferences and journals and several patent applications.Read moreRead less
Fundamentals of active sensor network for damage identification in engineering structures. The development of active sensor network techniques for Australia's vast civil and defence infrastructure will improve operational safety, reduce maintenance costs and extend the residual life of many of our engineered assets. The resulting cost-efficiencies will advantage Australian producers in competitive global markets; our companies will be well placed to produce and install active sensor network tech ....Fundamentals of active sensor network for damage identification in engineering structures. The development of active sensor network techniques for Australia's vast civil and defence infrastructure will improve operational safety, reduce maintenance costs and extend the residual life of many of our engineered assets. The resulting cost-efficiencies will advantage Australian producers in competitive global markets; our companies will be well placed to produce and install active sensor network techniques and to provide training in the associated asset management systems. Australian industry will have a unique opportunity to collaborate with the world-class research networks on emerging areas such as damage diagnosis, prognosis and control, and structural repair.Read moreRead less
Image-based teleoperation of semi-autonomous robotic vehicles. This project will contribute strongly to Australia's robotic service industry in the development of semi-autonomous robotic inspection vehicles by; developing core technology in image-based teleoperation, training experts in the area, promoting the study of this topic within the Australian academia, and developing test facilities and prototype vehicles. Robotic inspection vehicles have the potential to replace direct human presence i ....Image-based teleoperation of semi-autonomous robotic vehicles. This project will contribute strongly to Australia's robotic service industry in the development of semi-autonomous robotic inspection vehicles by; developing core technology in image-based teleoperation, training experts in the area, promoting the study of this topic within the Australian academia, and developing test facilities and prototype vehicles. Robotic inspection vehicles have the potential to replace direct human presence in difficult, dangerous or simply uncomfortable inspection tasks such as; inspection of industrial pressure vessels, piping and conduits in factories or mines, undersea cabling, inspection of bridges, dams and other large scale civil buildings, amongst many other possibilities.Read moreRead less