A Multi-Scale Approach To Reliability And Durability Of Engineering Structures And Sensors. The Longford explosion is an example where a major failure was due to a very small defect. It is estimated to have cost Australia in excess of $1.5 Billion. The acquisition costs of aircraft mean that keeping a fleet operational for a year can produce savings of ~$100,000,000.The automotive industry is designing lighter vehicles. GM Australia has realised that ensuring the durability of these new designs ....A Multi-Scale Approach To Reliability And Durability Of Engineering Structures And Sensors. The Longford explosion is an example where a major failure was due to a very small defect. It is estimated to have cost Australia in excess of $1.5 Billion. The acquisition costs of aircraft mean that keeping a fleet operational for a year can produce savings of ~$100,000,000.The automotive industry is designing lighter vehicles. GM Australia has realised that ensuring the durability of these new designs is essential. By our participation in the GM PACE program we ensure that the developments are available to the broader Australian Industry. Indeed, to design durable MEM's structures would give Australia a commercial edge.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
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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Fast Signal Processing and Control Algorithms for Complex Hierarchical Systems. Complex dynamical behaviour is inherent to many real-world systems including telecommunications networks, financial markets and biological systems. High performance signal processing and control algorithms for such large-scale, complex systems are computationally very expensive in general. An important class of large-scale Markovian models arising in many applications shows a remarkable hierarchical property, display ....Fast Signal Processing and Control Algorithms for Complex Hierarchical Systems. Complex dynamical behaviour is inherent to many real-world systems including telecommunications networks, financial markets and biological systems. High performance signal processing and control algorithms for such large-scale, complex systems are computationally very expensive in general. An important class of large-scale Markovian models arising in many applications shows a remarkable hierarchical property, displaying strong interactions within certain clusters of states and weak interactions among these clusters. By utilizing this property, the proposed project will design and analyze novel reduced-complexity signal processing and control algorithms with rigorous performance guarantees. In addition, this project will explore possibilities of making these algorithms hierarchical such that they are easy to implement through decentralization.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
A Novel Reconfigurable Unlimited Spherical Motion Generator. The main contribution of this research lies in the National Research Priority of Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries. The main outcome is a strategy to produce unlimited spherical motion with high precision. It is an innovative solution that is applicable to many cutting edge research and industry problems. Immediate application is expected to produce a faithful motion simulation, for flight, astr ....A Novel Reconfigurable Unlimited Spherical Motion Generator. The main contribution of this research lies in the National Research Priority of Frontier Technologies for Building and Transforming Australian Industries. The main outcome is a strategy to produce unlimited spherical motion with high precision. It is an innovative solution that is applicable to many cutting edge research and industry problems. Immediate application is expected to produce a faithful motion simulation, for flight, astronaut, and vehicle control training. It would potentially improve the quality of human resources and the quality of Australian industry, both civil and military. This project would also enhance the Australian competitive technological edge in developing advanced mechatronic systems.Read moreRead less
Colour visual processing by honeybees: solutions for decision making in complex environments. Honeybees are a cost and time efficient animal model for testing how information is processed in a miniature brain containing less than 0.01% of the number of cells found in a human brain. Bees use their ultraviolet, blue and green colour vision to efficiently find flowers in complex environments. This project investigates how colour information is processed by bees, and develops computer models to eval ....Colour visual processing by honeybees: solutions for decision making in complex environments. Honeybees are a cost and time efficient animal model for testing how information is processed in a miniature brain containing less than 0.01% of the number of cells found in a human brain. Bees use their ultraviolet, blue and green colour vision to efficiently find flowers in complex environments. This project investigates how colour information is processed by bees, and develops computer models to evaluate how novel solutions might be applicable for robotic vision. The model also allows for testing of how environmental factors, like changes in climate, might affect the way in which bees choose to visit certain flower types, including plants that have important environmental and economic impacts.Read moreRead less
Elucidating the inertial force mechanisms of turbulence. The turbulent flow of fluids (for example, air, water) near a solid surface is of enormous technological importance. The proposed research will advance engineering prediction and control capabilities by revealing how the unsteady eddying motions produce the apparent inertial force that distinguishes turbulent flows from their laminar counterparts.
Organization and Plasticity of Visual Processing in a Miniature Brain. To recognise objects a brain must have an internal representation of most likely object appearance. Two ways in which brains may posses this information include a hard wired template system, and/or the neuroplasticity to learn novel objects. Recent investigations on honeybee vision show that this animal can learn to recognise very difficult objects, although currently we do not know how the miniaturised bee brain manages thes ....Organization and Plasticity of Visual Processing in a Miniature Brain. To recognise objects a brain must have an internal representation of most likely object appearance. Two ways in which brains may posses this information include a hard wired template system, and/or the neuroplasticity to learn novel objects. Recent investigations on honeybee vision show that this animal can learn to recognise very difficult objects, although currently we do not know how the miniaturised bee brain manages these tasks. This project will reveal changes that occur in the processing of visual objects by the bee's brain with increasing experience, with potential applications including robotics or building interfaces between sensors and biological systems.Read moreRead less
The underexpanded impinging jet: a self-forcing flow of critical importance. The project aims to support the development and optimisation of a wide range of industrial processing techniques based on an in-depth understanding of receptivity mechanisms in the under-expanded impinging jet flow. Under-expanded impinging jets have broad applications ranging from aerospace propulsion to additive manufacturing to pharmaceutical drug delivery. By elucidating the underlying physics of this highly complex ....The underexpanded impinging jet: a self-forcing flow of critical importance. The project aims to support the development and optimisation of a wide range of industrial processing techniques based on an in-depth understanding of receptivity mechanisms in the under-expanded impinging jet flow. Under-expanded impinging jets have broad applications ranging from aerospace propulsion to additive manufacturing to pharmaceutical drug delivery. By elucidating the underlying physics of this highly complex flow field, the project aims to facilitate active control methodologies in a range of key industrial flows. The expected outcomes of the research include improving the efficiency and efficacy of a number of industrial processes, as well as increased knowledge about the fundamental science.Read moreRead less