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 29 matching student topics
Displaying 13–24 of 29 results
Re-localisation in natural environments
Re-localisation in robotics involves the process of determining a robot's current pose, consisting of its position and orientation. This can either be within a previously mapped and known environment (i.e. prior map) or relative to another robot in a multi-agent setup. Re-localisation is essential for enabling robots to perform tasks such as autonomous monitoring and exploration seamlessly, even when they encounter temporary challenges in precisely tracking their location in GPS-degraded environments. For instance, consider the 'wake-up' problem, where a robot …
- Study level
- PhD
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Investigating the application of sustainable AI practices in construction
The construction industry plays a vital role in the global economy and there is a growing interest in utilising artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its productivity and efficiency. Despite the industry's significant contribution to the economy, it has faced challenges such as large cost overruns, extended schedules, and quality concerns. Nevertheless, AI is making significant strides to remove these issues by revolutionising various aspects of the construction industry. This is evident from enhancing project planning and design to improving construction …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Architecture and Built Environment
Adaptive and efficient robot positioning
I am looking for highly motivated and talented PhD students to work with us on robot localisation and navigation. The students would join my DECRA Fellowship project "Adaptive and Efficient Robot Positioning Through Model and Task Fusion" funded by the Australian Research Council, which provides substantial top-up scholarships in addition to QUT's tax-free base stipend.Robot positioningWhere are you? This is a fundamental question to which most of us usually know the answer. And so do the birds singing in our …
- Study level
- PhD
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Topics in computational Bayesian statistics
Bayesian statistics provide a framework for a statistical inference for quantifying the uncertainty of unknowns based on information pre and post data collection.This information is captured in the posterior distribution, which is a probability distribution over the space of unknowns given the observed data.The ability to make inferences based on the posterior essentially amounts to efficiently simulating from the posterior distribution, which can generally not be done perfectly in practice.This task of sampling may be challenging for various reasons:The posterior …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Data Science
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
A soft robotic manipulator for spinal surgery
The geriatric population in Australia (4.2 million 2020, ABS), is growing steadily with numbers expected to double in the coming years. Incidences of spinal disorders requiring surgical treatment are therefore predicted to increase, incurring an estimated lifetime cost of AUD 3.7 billion per case (The Treasury). Robotics, an increasingly important component of modern medicine, is well suited to address the minimally invasive surgical needs of treating the spine.This project proposes the use of a soft-robotic manipulator to carry out spinal …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
- Research centre(s)
- Centre for Robotics
Interactive (and collaborative) robot programming using language (Project 2.5 - Joint CSIRO/ACC)
Programming robots to carry out desired tasks is difficult and time-consuming. This PhD project focuses on collaborative and instructional dialogue agents to help human operators program robot tasks.In this collaborative scenario, a human operator converses with an AI agent to explain the steps that are to be performed, using high-level references and abstractions that make sense to the human, as opposed to simple verbal instructions corresponding to rudimentary robot movements. The AI agent must interpret the high-level instructions and translate …
- Study level
- PhD
- School
- School of Design
- Research centre(s)
-
Design Lab
Capacity, wills and enduring powers of attorney
Dr Kelly Purser is interested in talking to students who wish to undertake research on the topics of capacity, wills, enduring powers of attorney, advance health directives, estate planning, equity and trusts, succession, or therapeutic jurisprudence.
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy
- School
- null
- Research centre(s)
- null
null
Optimisation of piezoelectric materials for robotics applications
Piezoelectricity, which translates to “pressure electricity”, is the phenomenon in which certain materials convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, and vice versa. Such materials are common-place and are used in a variety of applications including sensor, actuator, and energy harvesting technologies. The capabilities of such piezoelectric materials have not yet been fully realised. We plan to use computational structural optimisation to design new piezoelectric materials and components that may contribute to novel sensing technologies for robotics applications. Essentially, robots need …
- Study level
- PhD, Master of Philosophy, Honours
- Faculty
- Faculty of Science
- School
- School of Mathematical Sciences
Space robotics: Scene understanding for Lunar/Mars Rover
The QUT Centre for Robotics is working with the Australian Space Agency on the newly established Australian space program, in which robots will play a key role. There are multiple PhD projects available to work on different aspect of developing a new Lunar Rover (and later Mars Rover) and in particular its intelligence and autonomy. Future rovers will not only need to conduct exploration and science missions as famous rovers such as NASA's Curiosity or Perseverance are doing right now …
- Study level
- PhD
- Faculty
- Faculty of Engineering
- School
- School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics
Augmented reality (AR) applications for robotic scene understanding
Augmented reality (AR), or mixed reality, has become a mature technology with many possible practical applications in manufacturing, retail, navigation and entertainment.We're interested in using AR to support human-robot interaction. In this project, you'll investigate how a human can use AR to better understand how a robot perceives the world and to understand the robot's intentions.
- Study level
- Honours
- 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
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