QUT offers a diverse range of student topics for Honours, Masters and PhD study. Search to find a topic that interests you or propose your own research topic to a prospective QUT supervisor. You may also ask a prospective supervisor to help you identify or refine a research topic.
Found 145 matching student topics
Displaying 13–24 of 145 results
Finite element modelling of 3D auxetic structures
Protection of structures has become a priority for saving lives and preventing structural collapses caused by increased natural or man-made disasters. Most injuries and mortalities in these disasters are caused due to fragmentation of structures, and therefore, structural protection through systems that can absorb more energy and effectively contain the fragments (debris) are needed. Additive manufacturing (such as 3D printing) can be used to develop special geometries called auxetic geometries and composites using sustainable bioplastics which can absorb shock energy …
- Study level
- Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
High energy absorbing materials and composites for building protection from collision damage
Protection of structures has become a priority for saving lives and preventing structural collapses caused by increased natural or man-made disasters. Most injuries and mortalities in these disasters are caused due to fragmentation of structures, and therefore, structural protection through systems that can absorb more energy and effectively contain the fragments (debris) are needed. Additive manufacturing (such as 3D printing) can be used to develop special geometries called auxetic geometries and composites using sustainable bioplastics which can absorb shock energy …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Drone and satellite Artificial Intelligence
Satellite and drone/UAV data has a great potential to provide large-scale analytics for many domain applications. However, the wide range of data of diverse nature (e.g., optical vs. SAR, high-resolution vs. wide-coverage, mono- vs. hyper-spectral, 2-D vs. 3-D) also poses significant challenges for analytics.Deep learning holds great promise to deal with these tasks. While the number of research in this area is increasing, there still exists challenges such as co-learning of multimodal data, limited data annotation, and uncertainty in the …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Improving the resilience of older masonry building roofs against winds and cyclones
Wind and cyclonic actions are important in the design of new buildings in many Australian regions including in QLD. Cyclone Tracy in NT proved that older masonry building were particularly vulnerable to cyclonic actions, and the even resulted in the improvement of construction codes.However, there are many buildings that predate the introduction of modern codes. These buildings may be vulnerable to wind and cyclonic actions. This project has been designed to study the wind vulnerability of older masonry buildings and …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Materials Science
Centre for the Environment
Model predictive control of connected vehicle platoons
Control of connected vehicle platoons can ensure the swift movement of traffic through a city by sharing vehicles' states and desired actuation. This networked control design can alleviate traffic jams, reduce vehicle emissions, and reduce fuel usage through improved aerodynamics. Model Predictive Control algorithms are a natural solution to address constraints arising from both communications and system dynamics. A key challenge is to design distributed control algorithms that are robust to disturbances in the environment and to stochastic information from …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Estimation and control of networked cyberphysical systems
Cyberphysical systems (CPS) integrate sensors, communication networks, controllers, dynamic processes and actuators. CPS play an increasingly important role in modern society, in areas such as energy, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare. Due to the interplay between control systems, communications and computations, the design of CPS requires novel approaches, which bridge disciplinary boundaries.This PhD project will develop engineering science and methods for the analysis and design of CPS operating in closed loop. Your research will bring together elements of control systems engineering, as …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
From LiDAR or drone imagery to structural geometries
LiDAR geo-spatial data (3D coordinates) are freely available from government websites such as "QSpatial data portal". Alternatively, the use of drones have also become popular in aerial surveys and imagery.The geospatial data from these sources include 3D coordinates of various built structure. The data can be downloaded (in case of LiDAR) or processed from images (in case of drone survey) to create actual 3D picture of building structures. This work is commonly done using rendering software. The use of this …
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for the Environment
Very high-speed dynamic motion planning for arm robots
Robot manipulator arms are increasingly used for logistics applications. These typically require robots to run at the limits of their performance: motor torque and motor velocity. Added challenges include significant payloads (if we are schlepping heavy parcels) with apriori unknown mass, the possibility of boxes detaching from the gripper under high acceleration, and fixed obstacles in the workspace. How can we determine the limits to performance, quickly identify the payload mass, then plan the fastest path to get from A to B.
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Manipulation in nature
Grasping/manipulating in rainforest, farmland or shrubland environments pose a new challenge for existing techniques. This project will investigate how they manipulate where there may be tree branches, foliage, or other natural obstacles in the way.This project would explore existing and emerging techniques such as optimisation, neural radiance fields (NeRFs), deep learning and reinforcement learning and equipment, including depth cameras, LiDAR, event cameras, and light field cameras.Does the manipulator have to re-arrange the environment to manipulate the point of interest?Or does …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Off-road mobile manipulation
This project will investigate how mobile manipulators can operate and interact in natural environments like rainforests, grassland, shrubland, farmland, or desert ecosystems. This research project would explore how to control a continuous track or quadruped mobile manipulator in outdoor natural environments with many obstacles and constraints.Is holistic mobile manipulation possible with uneven terrain? As a mobile robot traverses rough ground, the terrain difference will cause feedback in the end-effector position.The mobile manipulator must overcome obstacle challenges, i.e. traverse around a …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Cobot contact tasks through multi-sensory deep learning
Contact tasks like grinding, polishing and assembly require a robot to physically interact with both rigid and flexible objects. Current methods relying on force control have difficulty achieving consistent finishing results and lack robustness in dealing with non-linear dynamics inherent in how the material is handled. This project will take a new approach that detects and diagnoses the dynamical process through deep learning fusion of multi-sensory data, including force/tactile, visual, thermal, sound, and acoustic emission; and generate corrective process parameters …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Robotic maintenance of equipment
Think about the problem of maintaining equipment at remote work sites. How can robotic technology help human maintenance staff to work more safely and productively?
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
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