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What's Inside


Directors Message

Centre News 

Member Achievements

Feature Story

Events - Past and Coming Up

New Faces

Behind the Scenes

Member Publications

Feature Story

Directors Message


 

It didn’t take long to be “well into 2022”. It’s been great to see everyone back at work and catch up after what I hope was a good break and recharge over the end of year (acknowledging that that break was fairly short for some who have upcoming deadlines – make sure to have a break after the deadline!)

The start of the year brings amongst many things new faces – and we’re welcoming a number of new PhDs and researchers into the group – details on that later in this newsletter. Many of us are also celebrating achievements – whether it be new senior memberships (congratulations Christina), board roles (congrats Felipe) and research achievements including new projects and papers. 

We are also launching our new Boston Dynamics Spot Mini robot – QCR researchers and the REF team have done a great job commissioning and starting to incorporate this exciting robot platform into our research projects. 


What does the year ahead have in store – we don’t know for sure, but we can be positive. The centre is in good health, and while budgets could always be bigger, we should be able to continue to support the core business of the centre. 

Many of us are looking hopefully towards the prospect of overseas work travel – for example for a conference. Right now, international travel is paused, but we will endeavour to support as much critical centre-related travel and publication fees as we can. To make every dollar go further, we’ll be asking people to find co-funding from project grants, HDR funds or the school. We’ll also be prioritizing those who have most missed out on travel – for example, finishing PhD students who have never had the chance to travel despite international conference publications. 

One of the key themes for a successful 2022 will be communication and efficiency. In a very challenging recruiting environment, the centre is collectively looking for a large number of PhD and postdoc positions. The funding is already there through projects and grants – it's just finding the right people. So please help spread the word, and if you or friends and colleagues are looking, come chat! 

Finally, it’s important to mention again – the last 2 years have been particularly tough on everyone – and so as you really get stuck into 2022, you may feel less refreshed than you normally would be at the start of a new year. Make sure you keep track of how you’re feeling, and please keep an eye out on those around you. 

Michael 

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Centre News

Accepted Workshop

Accepted Workshop ICRA 2022 - Workshop on Agricultural Robotics and Automation  (Popovic, Marija; Chebrolu, Nived; Magistri, Federico; Lehnert, Christopher; Stachniss, Cyrill) 
This workshop focuses on recent advances in agricultural robotics and automation.  The objective is to bring together researchers and practitioners to share ideas and approaches enabling robotic systems in agriculture. Workshop website here

 

Robotics Vision Scene Understanding (RVSU) challenge

We're excited to release the latest Robotic Vision Scene Understanding (RVSU) challenge in the Embodied AI workshop at #CVPR2022. http://cvpr2022.roboticvisionchallenge.org
 
We have $2,500 USD in cash prizes on offer, & there's also 11 other great challenges to try!  Read more here 
 


Data Labeller Required


The AOS AgKelpie project seeking a data labeller(s) 
  • Variable hours - contract until Sept/Oct 2022 

  • If interested contact James Mount (j.mount@qut.edu.au) or see more here 
     


Covid-19 Mask Update


From 6pm Friday 4 March 2022 mask requirements in Qld will change - read more 
here




 

QCR Communications Update

If you could please add the following to your QCR signature block-  

Follow QCR on Twitter 

Follow QCR on LinkedIn 

Subscribe to QCR’s Newsletter 



 

QCR Seminar Series Mailing List Change




 

QCR Budget Support for 2022

Our QCR funding policy and application for support processes have been updated to reflect the budget situation and can be seen here - please take the time to read this here.  Also note we have some limited funding support for additional new services this year - professional paper editing and catering of work-related events. 

 


Diversity

21 LGBTQ Flags - All LGBTQ Flags Meanings & Terms – see more here 
 

QUT - MOPP - A/8.4 Equal opportunity and diversity 

Managers and supervisors (within their scope of authority). ensure that workplace and study environments are inclusive and free of discrimination and harassment; implement equal opportunity and diversity policy in all aspects of their area’s activities 

www.mopp.qut.edu.au 

Member Achievements

Grant Awarded

Chris, Feras (now an academic at Adelaide Uni) & My Linh (CAB) have been awarded an Innovation Connections Grant worth $100k! The aim of this project is to conduct a feasibility study to identify and assess different technologies and methods for estimating grey mould on strawberries within the sorting facility.









 

Accepted RA-L Paper

“Spiking Neural Networks for Visual Place Recognition via Weighted Neuronal Assignments” 

Somayeh Hussaini, Michael Milford, and Tobias Fischer 




 

Accepted ICRA Paper

“A Novel Model of Interaction Dynamics between Legged Robots and Deformable Terrain” 

Anthony Vanderkop, Navinda Kottege, Thierry Peynot, Peter Corke 



 

Accepted ICRA Papers



 

 

 

IEEE Senior Membership

Congratulations Christina Kazantzidou, who has been elevated to the grade of Senior Member of IEEE.    

Senior Member is the highest professional grade of IEEE for which a member may apply. It requires extensive experience and reflects professional accomplishment and maturity. Only 10% of IEEE’s more than 400,000 members have achieved this level 

 

Published Paper

Will and colleagues have a paper published in TEVC (IF 11.554) 

"Frames of Reference Based Learning: Overcoming Perceptual Aliasing in Multistep Decision-Making Tasks"
The work is for an egocentric agent in an aliased domain, where methods are created to disambiguate local patterns within a global context. 

 

Thesis Accepted


Congrats to Artur! Thesis has been accepted subject to minor changes 

Thesis title: “Visual Navigation in Minimally Invasive Surgery” 

Principal supervisor: Aaron McFadyen 

Associate supervisors: Ross Crawford, Cameron Brown 

 

 

Successful Final Seminar




Congratulations to Nicolas Mandel on his successful final seminar! 





 

Thesis Accepted

Congrats to Gavin! Thesis has been accepted subject to minor changes 

Thesis title: “Instructing and Training Robots through a Natural Language Dialogue” 

Principal supervisor - Frederic Maire 

Associate supervisors - Jonathan Roberts and Ben Talbot 

 


Faculty Academic Board


The discipline school representatives for 2022-2023 are:
MMPE - Sara Couperthwaite
CEE - Maziar Gholami Korzani
EER - Felipe Gonzalez
ABE - Susan Loh

Only one person was nominated for each school, therefore the nominees have been appointed without an election.
Feature Story

 



ITS Australia Young Professional Award Program

Congratulations to Komol for being a finalist and receiving a certificate in the ITS Australia Young Professional Award 2021. Read more here. 

 
Events

Coming Up

Events - 2022 Women in STEMM: Career Development Workshops 

Delivered by Hugh Kearns - academic, researcher and media expert - these workshops are aimed at helping  academic women in STEMM  to thrive  in academia. These deep dive workshops include strategies to perform well, be able to promote themselves and their research, work on realistic and achievable research goals, and develop a research track record and outputs that will cost less. 

The following Zoom sessions are offered in 2022 to female academics in STEMM – please register at the link: 

Developing a research track record on a shoestring, 17 May, 9:30 am-12 pm 

Promoting yourself and your research, 28 June, 10 am-12 pm 

Staying well in academia, 30 June, 9:30-11:30 am 

Planning your research career, 6 July, 2:30-4:30 pm 

Developing a research track record on a shoestring, 28 Sept, 2:30-5 pm 

Staying well in academia, 2 Nov, 2-4 pm 

For any further information contact Ramziya Asanalishoeva. 

 


Coming Up

Women in Data Science Day 2022 

Celebrate International Women in Data Science Day with the QUT Centre for Data Science & the Australian Data Science Network 

Find out more or register here  

Past Events

See more about our thesis networking event here


Robotics Seminar Series Catchup

Missed a seminar? Catch up here. 

Seminars from 1 February 2022 to 22 February 2022 

QCR Space Robotics : Australian context, current activities and plans 
Date: 1 February 2022
Speaker: A/Prof Thierry Peynot 
link 


 

Trust & Touch for Human-Robot Interaction 
Date:  8 February 2022
Presenter: A/Prof Harold Soh, Dept of Computer Science 
National University of Singapore (NUS) 
link

 

Working with Industry 
Date:  15 February 2022
Presenters: Aaron McFadyen, Jonathan Roberts, Deon de Saldanha 
Link 


 

Behaviour Priors in Reinforcement Learning for Robots
Date:  22 February 2022
Presenters: Krishan Rana
Please contact Krishan for information

New Faces

Welcome to Kiran Deshmukh

Kiran Deshmukh has just arrived in Brisbane to undertake her Master of Philosophy with Peter.  

Research topic: Very high-speed dynamic motion planning for the 6DoF Yaskawa or generic serial-link manipulator arm robot 

>READ MORE 
 

Welcome to Sebastien Boiteau


Sebastien Boiteau has just begun his PhD with Felipe. 

>READ MORE
 

Welcome to Steve Jones

PhD Researcher
Supervisors are Thierry Peynot & Matt Dunbabin
PhD Title: Scene Understanding for a Lunar Rover

>READ MORE 

 

Welcome to Md Mostafizur Rahman Komol


PhD student - supervisor Will Browne


>READ MORE
 
Behind the Scenes

… with Jordan Gleeson


What do you do in the Centre and what are you currently working on? 
I am working on my PHD in collision avoidance for unmanned surface vessels (USVs). More specifically, how the collision regulations and uncertainty in a system factor into USV path planning algorithms.  

What’s on your desk? 
Not a whole lot, except for a toy robot my wife gave me when I graduated that has followed me to every position I’ve worked in. 

How would you describe your work to a child? 
Making robot boats that don’t crash. 

Three words to describe your work. 
Dynamic, physical, engaging 

What’s your dream travel destination? 
I would love to visit Canada one day. 

Please finish these sentences: 
I’m currently reading  
4-hour Work Week (thanks Michael!) 

And currently wishing   
For my code to work first try! 

My last meal would be 
A really good burger. 

Final question!  Tea, coffee or no caffeine?  
Tea 
Member Publications

A Holistic Approach to Reactive Mobile Manipulation 
Haviland J, Sunderhauf N, Corke P  2022 IEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Scopus - Document details - A Holistic Approach to Reactive Mobile Manipulation 

Slippage Estimation for Skid-Steering Robots in Outdoor Environments using Deep Learning 
Nourizadeh P, Stevens McFadden F, Browne W  2021 Australasian Conference Robotics and Automation, ACRA, 2021-December
Scopus - Document details - Slippage Estimation for Skid-Steering Robots in Outdoor Environments using Deep Learning 

Implementation of a Vertical Hydroponic Farming End Effector for Harvesting 
Barthelme Q, Lehnert C     2021  Australasian Conference Robotics and Automation, ACRA, 2021-December
Scopus - Document details - Implementation of a Vertical Hydroponic Farming End Effector for Harvesting 

Fast and Robust Bio-inspired Teach and Repeat Navigation 
Dall'osto D, Fischer T, Milford M     2021 IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots Systems, pp.500-507
Scopus - Document details - Fast and Robust Bio-inspired Teach and Repeat Navigation 

Robust Re-identification of Manta Rays from Natural Markings by Learning Pose Invariant Embeddings 
Moskvyak O, Maire F, Dayoub F, Armstrong A O, Baktashmotlagh M    DICTA 2021 - 2021 International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications
Scopus - Document details - Robust Re-identification of Manta Rays from Natural Markings by Learning Pose Invariant Embeddings 

FSNet: A Failure Detection Framework for Semantic Segmentation 
Rahman Q M, Sunderhauf N, Corke P, Dayoub F    2022 IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Scopus - Document details - FSNet: A Failure Detection Framework for Semantic Segmentation 
 

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Send us your news and achievements via email- robotics@qut.edu.au

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