Projects

ASKAP Project

The aim of this project is provide expertise to the Australia Telescope National Facility in the development of a number of aspects involved with the Australia SKA Project.

Automation of Blast Hole Charging

The aim of this project was to automate the charging process in underground mining. This process involves placing primer and detonators into holes drilled into the roof and walls of development drives, and filling the holes with liquid explosives. The vehicle to be automated (referred to as the Mobile Charging Unit) carries an emulsion pumping system, a primer/detonator assembly system and a hydraulic arm. CSIRO's role in the project was to develop a hydraulic arm that is able to insert the emulsion hose into the pre-drilled holes.

Biosecurity Collaboration Platform

This project is investigating new ways to improve collaboration at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory.

Blended Interaction Spaces

The Blended Interaction Space (BIS) concept combines video conferencing elements and distributed shared interactive digital screen elements to support distributed hands-on collaboration in the workplace in a way that participants feel as if they are physically together.

Cognitive Wireless Project

Delivering ad hoc communications technologies to enable flexible wireless network deployments.

Condamine Balonne

This project examines two technologies that can be used in the management of water resources. The Condamine-Balonne river system, in Queensland, is used as a test case to evaluate the research.

CSIRO Rural Broadband Access Project

CSIRO’s Rural Broadband Access is a novel, spectrally efficient, fixed wireless communications system that is capable of providing 100 Mbps broadband access for up to 1000 subscribers simultaneously with one base station.

CSIRO Rural Broadband Backhaul Project

This project aims to achieve long range (>50 km) multigigabit wireless backhaul communicaiton links, in the microwave spectrum (6-11 GHz).

Dragline Automation

The Mining Automation team at QCAT has been developing high-technology systems to assist dragline operators and mine planners since 1994. We have demonstrated our cruise control and Digital Terrain Mapping (DTM) technologies in operation on a scale model dragline in Brisbane, allowing the machine to be operated by a team member in the USA.

Environmental Monitoring

Wireless sensor networks provide the ability to measure and record information about the natural environment at a spatial and temporal scale that has never previously been possible. Information from wireless sensor networks will transform our understanding of the environment, and will motivate and inform the development of new practices for environmental management.

Environmental Sensing

Increasing the capability of Wireless Sensor Networks to help understand the environment.

Excavator Guidance

This project developed and demonstrated a system that is able to simultaneously track the bucket of a mining excavator and map the terrain under the boom. Trials of a proof of concept system deployed on an excavator at the Blair Athol mine in central Queensland demonstrated that the system is able to generate dynamic Digital Terrain Maps (DTM) while tracking the location of the bucket teeth to within 10cm. Importantly, the trials also demonstrated that the sensors are able to survive over extended periods in the mining environment.

Health Care and Sports Performance

Wireless sensor networks are being used to provide patient information in health care applications, and to provide real-time performance feedback to athletes and coaches.

Human Factors in Telerobotics

The research draws on new trends in human computer interaction (HCI) research in 3D interactions, examines interaction techniques and user interface requirements for 3D applications using virtual reality, augmented reality and large screen display systems.

Information Engineering for Socio-cognitively motivated networks

This project will leverage data mining and natural language processing techniques to assist information analysts in discovering non-obvious social networks from large collections of text documents.

Intelligent Energy

We are developing new ways of controlling and managing energy usage and generation through the application of techniques in machine learning, optimisation, and automatic adaptive control. Our research is being applied to the problem of controlling local renewable energy generators, residential energy consumption, and the energy consumption of large electrical loads such as heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems. Ultimately our research outcomes will allow a significant reduction in CO2 emissions associated with small-scale electricity generation, as well as more effective use of electricity in large loads such as air-conditioning systems. Our technology will provide information to consumers that will afford them greater choice and enable them to responsibly modify their consumption patterns.

Load Haul Dump (LHD) Automation

An LHD is a mid sized (up to 60 tonne) underground mining vehicle that loads, hauls and dumps (hence its name) metaliferous ore from an open stope (where there is broken rock) to a crusher or waiting truck to be transported to the surface. Since the roof of the tunnel in open stope areas is unstable, this type of operation presents a number of safety issues and provides a perfect opportunity for automation. Our aim in this project was to automate the haulage and dumping cycle for an LHD.

Materials Handling

We are developing technology to enable autonomous vehicles to manipulate and interact with the environment rather than simply navigating through it. Typical tasks that are ripe for automation include the movement and stacking of containers, and the clearing of debris after a natural disaster. In order to perform such tasks, an autonomous vehicle must be capable of mapping the ever-changing environment and localising itself at a macro level (sufficient for navigation) within that environment. It must also be capable of recognising and tracking objects and performing fine-grained localisation to enable the pick-up and accurate placement of payloads. The vehicle must be capable of both short and long term task planning, as well as reacting to externally-imposed changes to the environment.

OptIPortal

OptIPortal Construction - With support of the Computational and Simulation Sciences TCP we are constructing OptIPortals.

Position Location Project

The aim of the wireless localisation project is to develop systems for accuracy tracking of people and assets in challenging radio propagation environments.