QUT Centre for Robotics Monthly Newsletter

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A monthly newsletter by the QUT Centre for Robotics

November 2021 Table of Contents

Directors Message
Centre News & Achievements
Upcoming Events
Past Events
Robotics Seminar Series Catch up
New Faces
Behind the Scenes
Diversity
Publications

Directors Message

Welcome to the ever so slightly late November issue of our newsletter. There will be a proper December issue just before we break for holidays later in the month.

For many of us it’s the end of teaching for another year, a chance to reflect on how that went, and what we can usefully change for next year. I for one have found the hybrid teaching challenging from an engagement perspective, but the interactions with the smart and enthusiastic students is rewarding and I guess the reason why we are driven to teach.

Staff wise we have sad news and good news. We’ve heard this week that Feras is leaving to take up a senior lecturer position at the University of Adelaide. We have many colleagues there from ACRV days, they have a very strong group and huge momentum in AI, all of which presents a great opportunity. Feras started with me as a postdoc in 2011, straight out of his PhD at Lincoln. He has made great contributions to many projects, supervised a number of PhD students, and co-taught EGB439 with me for a number of years. I will miss interesting his interesting conversation on diverse topics and his constructive contributions as a lab member. I wish him success in his new role and a good life in the city of churches. We will properly celebrate Feras’ contributions and friendship, and bid him farewell, at an event in coming weeks.

Balancing the ledger I am happy to mention that Fangyi Zhang has started as a postdoc researcher in the Physical Interaction program of the Centre. Fangyi was a former PhD student in ACRV, and returns to us after a few years in industry in China. Please reacquaint, or introduce, yourself to Fangyi and make him welcome.

Enjoy the issue.

peter

Centre News & Achievements

Citations

The #Stanford most-cited scientists list has just been updated: the QUT Centre for Robotics has at least four academics who feature in the various lists:

In the overall career lists, which aren't normalized by career stage:

💠 Peter Corke appears at #93 out of 96,361 researchers in the Industrial Engineering & Automation field, top 0.1%!

💠 Michael at #888 out of 96,361 researchers in the Industrial Engineering & Automation field, in the top 0.9%. And #376 based on 2020.

Felipe Gonzalez and Niko Sünderhauf also appeared in the 2020 citation rankings list, which recognizes citations in recent times.

Citations are obviously just one of many, imperfect, and sometimes misused measures of research impact - but generally do indicate that your work is widely used and referenced by the research community.

Paper reference: https://lnkd.in/ezggQYC

QCR in CSRankings

QCR is at the top of the Robotics list in Australia on www.CSRankings.org

All caveats from the previous slide apply. CSRankings only considers IROS, ICRA and R:SS

A new QCR baby!
Congratulations to David Hall and his wife on the birth of their new baby Ronald George Hall born 15 November!

Promotion
Congratulations to Chris Lehnert who has been promoted to Senior Lecturer!

NeurIPS Workshop paper
NeurIPS Workshop paper accepted, for poster & oral presentation.

Workshop on Deployable Decision Making in Embodied Systems

New book and membership
Congratulations to Felipe Gonzalez who has published a new book UAV or Drones for Remote Sensing Applications in GPS/GNSS Enabled and GPS/GNSS Denied Environments.

He has also been elected as Member of Standards Australia Committees and Joint Standards Australia/Standards New Zealand Committees : SV-001 Aircraft and Space Systems ISO/TC 20/SC 14. This committee looks after Space Systems and drones Sub technical committees and allows Australian representation at an international level.

A new role for Tobi
Tobias Fischer has accepted an ongoing (permanent) role in the School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, commencing in 2022. Tobi’s position will be primarily funded by an ARC Laureate Fellowship grant for the next 5 years. His role will include helping lead a large research team and research program creating bio-inspired alternatives to GPS, working with Michael Milford and other colleagues / collaborators over the next 5 years.

Tobi will commence initially as research intensive academic, move to a lighter teaching load in year 2, before transitioning to a normal teaching-research-service role at the conclusion of the 5 years (pending other funding developments like new fellowships).

IEEE Publication
Congrats to Tobi and other whose paper was accepted to the IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine.

CRC Project
Congratulations to both Chris Lehnert and Feras Dayoub who have been awarded a Future Food Systems CRC Project worth $122k!

Title: Robotic Task Automation in Protected Cropping Systems: Enabling autonomous pollination in elite Australian greenhouses using mobile robots.

New position at Oxford
Congrats to Jack Collins who has submitted his PhD for examination as had a Post-doc position at the University of Oxford!

New Membership
Congratulations to Thierry Peynot whom was elected Chair of the IEEE QLD CS/RAS joint societies for 2022.

School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics HDR Awards

Congratulations to HDR students who were recognised in the School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics HDR Awards:

2021 3MT and VYT Success award - Somayeh Hussaini

2021 EER Women HDR student of the year award - Dimity Miller
2021 Engagement and leadership award - Serena Mou
2021 Postgraduate Research Industry Engagement award - Valtteri Kallinen
2021 Postgraduate Research Publication award - Guilherme Fróes Silva
2021 Postgraduate Research Publication award - Stephen Hausler

In the media - Manufacturer's Monthly
Congratulations to Will Browne for being featured in Manufacturer's Monthly!

Upcoming Events

Retreat

The QCR End-of-Year retreat is set for Monday 13 December 12-5pm in the QUT Gibson room (Level 10 Z Block). There will be plenty of exciting talks including from Keynote speaker Prof Jason Mattingley (UQ). There is a social event after the retreat at the Southbank Beet Garden from 5.30pm. If you have not yet RSVP’d, please email Vicki by no later than COB Mon 6 December.

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Social - Stealing/Secret Santa!

Who: Anyone willing to participate

Time/Date: 10:30 13th Dec 2021 (Before QCR End of Year Function)

Rules:

Buy and bring a wrapped gift that is up to $15, but not over
No drinks
No gambling items (lotto tickets, scratchies, etc.)

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Past Events

Kelvin Grove State College Creative Expo

QCR Ambassadors Somayeh and Scarlett along with REF team members Riki and Das, attended the Kelvin Grove State College Junior School Creative Expo last Friday.

Somayeh says of the event “The event went very well last Friday. Our booth was very busy throughout the event. There were many primary school students who were very excited to see a robot in their school.

Young Accelerators Program Tour

Tobi ran a tour last week for the Young Accelerators Program (winners of the Premiers Coding Challenge). There were about 30 people in attendance including students and their teachers.

Ministerial Visit

The Hon Meaghan Scanlon MP Minister for the Environment and the Great Barrier Reef and Minister for Science and Youth Affairs visited QCR on Friday 26 November.

She did a brief tour of the centre and spoke with various researchers about their projects including:

Dr Jing Peng and Mr Morgan Windsor (Robotic shoulder surgery)
Dr Feras Dayoub (Reef environmental monitoring)
Dr Aaron Mcfadyen (Drones and Aviation)

Robotics Seminar Series Catch Up

Seminars from 26 October to 23 November 2021

The Why and How of Powertake: a Carbon Negative

26 October 2021

Presenter Sean Wade-McCue

https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/2ePcF5JqSiXjIYD/download?path=%2F&files=20211026_Sean_Wade-McCue_final.mp4

Spiking Neural Networks for Visual Place Recognition

2 November 2021

Presenter Somayeh Hussaini

https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/2ePcF5JqSiXjIYD/download?path=%2F&files=20211102_Somayeh_Hussaini_final.mp4

How to design deployable software systems

9 November 2021

Presenter Garima Samvedi

https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/2ePcF5JqSiXjIYD/download?path=%2FTechnical%20Talks%2FDeployableSoftwareSystems&files=20211109_Garima_Samvedi_Part1_final.mp4

Technical Talk Part 2: How to Design Deployable Software Systems

16 November 2021

Presenter Garima Samvedi

https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/2ePcF5JqSiXjIYD/download?path=%2FTechnical%20Talks%2FDeployableSoftwareSystems&files=20211116_Garima_Samvedi_Part2_final.mp4

Soft Robotics and its applications

23 November 2021

Presenter Dr Jing Peng

https://cloudstor.aarnet.edu.au/plus/s/2ePcF5JqSiXjIYD/download?path=%2F&files=20211123_Jing_Peng.mp4

New Faces

QCR has a new Associate Investigator (AI) who will work with Aaron and Jason in the Decision & Control program.

Please welcome Associate Professor Saiful Karim.

Dr Karim teaches and researches in various areas of law relating to the environment, ocean, maritime security and autonomous systems. He is currently a Chief Investigator of an ARC discovery project titled “Improving International Law Regulation of Maritime Autonomous Vessels (MAVs).” The aim of this project is to fill a critical gap in current responses in international law in focusing on the challenges posed by MAVs to international maritime security law.

Behind the Scenes

... With James Mount

What do you do in the Centre and what are you currently working on?

I am a robotics research engineer at QUT I work on a variety of projects for external groups wanting to utilise QUT’s robotics expertise and resources. Currently I am working on two external projects, one for AOS and one for Boeing, as well as supporting QCR academics and students.

What’s on your desk?

Way too much clutter. Is anyone willing to clean it up for me? I have everything from rubber ducks and stress balls to nuts and bolts and Raspberry Pis.

How would you describe your work to a child?

I help other people bring new robots and technology into the world.

Three words to describe your work?

Rewarding, Challenging, Entertaining

What’s your dream travel destination?

Too many places. In terms of unvisited places, I would love to explore Scandinavia and see the Northern lights. But, I also want to check out more of the Mediterranean and do a full ski-season in Canada (yes I will not shut up about it).

Please finish these sentences:

I’m currently reading - nothing. But I do have a few things on the list including books on virtue ethics and stoicism and the most recent book in the Stormlight Archives.

And currently wishing - do you really want to know my innermost desires? I wish I could travel to Canada and do some skiing. Or win won the lotto.

My last meal would be - Morning tea (grapes, popcorn and a chocolate nut bar)

Final question!  Tea, coffee or no caffeine?

If I had caffeine I would be running on the roof. Does that answer the question?

Diversity

Ally Training

Ally training: Become part of our supportive community
QUT’s Ally Network provides support and creates a visibly safe space for staff and students who identify as part of the LGBTIAQ+ community. Within the Faculty we are keen to increase our numbers of trained Allies and promote our support. New sessions have just been added, so if you have considered attending Ally training, this is the time! If you have previously completed training you can also add an Ally marker to your staff profile on Digital Workplace. Find out more about the network and register for the training today.

Publications

Theses:

J Kennedy – 2021. Thesis - “Wave-Induced marine craft motion estimation and control,” EPrints

Justin_Kennedy_Thesis.pdf (qut.edu.au)

Papers:

LiDAR-based Computational Fluid Dynamics heat transfer models for bushfire conditions

Hendawitharana, S., Ariyanayagam, A., Mahendran, M. & Gonzalez, L. F., Dec 2021, In: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction. 66, 13 p., 102587.

Modelling utility-aggregator-customer interactions in interruptible load programmes using non-cooperative game theory

Mohseni, S., Brent, A. C., Kelly, S., Browne, W. N. & Burmester, D., Dec 2021, In: International Journal of Electrical Power and Energy Systems. 133, 23 p., 107183.

Autonomous Mapping of Desiccation Cracks via a Probabilistic-based Motion Planner Onboard UAVs

Sandino, J., Galvez-Serna, J., Mandel, N., Vanegas Alvarez, F. & Gonzalez, L. F., 15 Nov 2021, (Accepted/In press) 2022 IEEE Aerospace Conference. IEEE Xplore, 14 p.

Real-time Segmentation of Desiccation Cracks onboard UAVs for Planetary Exploration

Galvez-Serna, J., Mandel, N., Sandino, J., Vanegas Alvarez, F., Ly, N., Flannery, D. & Gonzalez, L. F., 15 Nov 2021, (Accepted/In press) 2022 IEEE Aerospace Conference. 15 p.

Reducing Object Detection Uncertainty from RGB and Thermal Data for UAV Outdoor Surveillance

Sandino, J., Caccetta, P., Sanderson, C., Maire, F. & Gonzalez, L. F., 15 Nov 2021, (Accepted/In press) 2022 IEEE Aerospace Conference. IEEE Xplore, 16 p.

Resolution-adaptive Quadtrees for Semantic Segmentation Mapping in UAV Applications

Mandel, N., Sandino, J., Galvez Serna, J., Vanegas Alvarez, F., Milford, M. & Gonzalez, L. F., 15 Nov 2021, (Accepted/In press) 2022 IEEE Aerospace Conference. IEEE Xplore, 17 p.

Drone-Based Autonomous Motion Planning System for Outdoor Environments under Object Detection Uncertainty

Sandino, J., Maire, F., Caccetta, P., Sanderson, C. & Gonzalez, L. F., 1 Nov 2021, In: Remote Sensing. 13, 21, 30 p., 4481.

Chen Fan, Adam Jacobson, Zetao Chen, Xiaofeng He, Lilian Zhang, Xiaoping Hu, Michael Milford

Bio-inspired Multi-scale Visual Place Recognition for the Aerial Vehicle Navigation | SpringerLink

"Sample-Efficient Learning of Deformable Linear
Object Manipulation in the Real World through Self-Supervision",
by Robert Lee, Masashi Hamaya, Takayuki Murooka, Yoshihisa Ijiri, Peter
Corke, number 21-1356, that has been accepted for publication as a
Submission for RA-L only in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters(RA-L).

The proceedings of ICRA2021 are now published online at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/search/searchresult.jsp?newsearch=true&contentType=conferences&queryText=ICRA%202021

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