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 20 matching student topics
Displaying 1–12 of 20 results
Dexterous tools with variable stiffness for minimally invasive surgery
Robotics has a positive impact on surgical procedures. This is particularly the case with minimally invasive surgeries. In these procedures, there is a need for compact tools that can be inserted through a tiny opening but are versatile in function. This project will look at the design of dexterous alternatives to traditional surgical tools within this context. Methods to vary the workspace and stiffness of the tool will be investigated by combining inspiration from the design of miniature biological joints …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Cyber-security aspects of battery storage systems
Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are a key energy storage component in various electrical and electronic systems such as mobile phones, electric vehicles and grid storage. A properly designed battery management system (BMS) is crucial to guarantee the safety, reliability, and optimal performance of the battery as well as to interconnect the battery systems with each other and external systems through communication channels. However, security threats of the Li-ion battery systems are often overlooked by BMS developers in the design phase. The …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
-
Centre for Clean Energy Technologies and Practices
Advancing precision control in atomic force microscopy
To advance precision positioning control technology through instrumentation of an 800×800 μm XY positioning table, equipped with two piezoelectric actuators to manoeuvre samples under a microscope. Positioning control systems designers struggle with trade-offs between positioning accuracy, actuation range, response time, and cost.Our goal is to enhance the positioning systems, used in atomic force microscopes, to improve their imaging accuracy and resolution while reducing overall hardware costs. By quantising analogue positioning sensors to simulate low-resolution (low-cost) encoders, we will explore new …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Control of concentrating solar thermal power plants
Concentrating solar power (CSP) is a technology that utilises mirrors (heliostats) to focus the sun’s rays on a solar receiver. This provides heat for a power generation cycle, creating thermal energy.Control of the heat transfer fluid temperature in the solar receiver is crucial for the efficient use/storage of thermal energy and to minimise the degradation of the receiver. The aim of this project is to design controllers for the heat transfer fluid pumps and the heliostats using a previously developed model of the receiver's thermodynamics.
- Study level
- Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Mechanical, Medical and Process Engineering
Tobacco control
As a prime advocate for plain packaging of tobacco products, Professor Matthew Rimmer is engaged in research and public policy work on tobacco control. He is interested in supervising research students working within the field of tobacco control - including in respect of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control; trade and investment disputes over tobacco control; the plain packaging of tobacco products; restrictions on tobacco advertising, sponsorship, and promotions; generational limitations on smoking; spatial restrictions on smoking; and civil …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Business and Law
- School
- School of Law
- Research centre(s)
-
Australian Centre for Health Law Research
Haptics controllers for natural interactions in VR
Virtual reality (VR) technologies have become cheaper and more accessible in the last couple of years. This allowed for exploring their use in different areas including gaming, health, education and training settings.While VR can provide high immersion via augmenting our senses in the virtual environment, user interaction with the virtual environment has been limited relying on pre-set gestures or default controllers designed by the companies who built the VR gears.The Vive Tracker is an accessory for HTC Vive which allows …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Computer Science
Coordinated control of multi-robot systems for dynamic task execution
Managing multiple robotic systems simultaneously poses many challenges around coordination and control. This is particularly true in environments where there's a lack of accurate localisation, sensing uncertainty and limited communications, yet there is an overarching mission objective or series of tasks that need to be completed.In this project, you will explore and develop approaches around multi-robot swarming and coordinated formation control for dynamic process monitoring, target tracking and coordinated mapping. There will be a particular focus on underwater and surface …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Coordinated control of multi-robot systems for environmental management
Single robotic systems can't accurately measure dynamic processes and map large areas in challenging environments. However, managing multiple robotic systems simultaneously poses many challenges around coordination and control. This is particularly true in environments where there's a lack of communication with the system. This project will explore multi-robot swarming and formation control to monitor, manage and track large-scale environmental phenomena.In this project, you will explore multi-robot swarming and coordinated formation control for dynamic process monitoring, target tracking and coordinated mapping. …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Gesture-based control of underwater helper-bots
Underwater robotic systems have been in use for several decades. In recent years, various groups have been adding manipulators and other payloads to increase their utility. The next frontier is to have human divers and robotic system collaborate safely and productively in the same space to jointly complete complex tasks. In this project, you'll explore gesture-based interaction to allow a diver and underwater robotic system to collaborate to complete various tasks. This will involve exploring vision processing and fusion algorithms, …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Gesture-based control of underwater helper-bots
Underwater robotic systems have been in use for several decades. In recent years, various groups have been adding manipulators and other payloads to increase their utility. However, their role has primarily been monitoring and mapping the oceans without human interaction.The next frontier is to have human divers and robotic system collaborate safely and productively in the same space to jointly complete complex tasks. This will involve the robotic system directly understanding and interacting with the diver in a non-verbal manner. …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for 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
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:energytransportationmanufacturinghealthcare.Due to the interplay between control systems, communications and computations, the design of CPS requires novel approaches, which bridge disciplinary boundaries.We're interested in developing engineering science and methods for the analysis and design of CPS operating in closed loop. Our research brings together elements of control systems engineering, as well as telecommunications and reinforcement learning.The current …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Contact us
If you have questions about the best options for you, the application process, your research topic, finding a supervisor or anything else, get in touch with us today.