QUT MOTORSPORT NEWS
Since the successful launch of their autonomous race car in 2021, the Driverless team at QUT Motorsport has been rapidly improving the platform with new hardware and software. Creating an autonomous race car requires extra mechanical systems that are retrofitted onto QUT Motorsport’s existing QEV-3 electric platform, such as a steering actuator and external braking system. The team successfully tested their autonomous steering capability on-track at the end of 2021 and is nearing completion of the braking system, which is the final mechanical system required for full autonomy.
Building an autonomous system also requires numerous software projects to be undertaken, with students developing ROS-based systems to solve problems such as model predictive control, landmark based SLAM and sensor-fusion for velocity estimation.
At the end of last year, the team demonstrated the prototype to its faculty supporters (pictured below) and more recently represented the QUT Engineering Faculty at the BMW Group + QUT Design Academy M8 Competition Coupe Unveiling with a display of the autonomous vehicle (also below).
QUT Motorsport is excited with the progress they are making in the autonomous racing space and expect to have a fully-autonomous prototype racing in the coming months.
AUSTRALIAN COBOTICS CENTRE NEWS
The Australian Cobotics Centre’s monthly seminar series kicked off for 2022 with a talk on ‘Participatory and Co-design in Manufacturing’. Presented by the Centre’s Human Robot Interaction program leads, A/Prof Markus Rittenbruch and A/Prof Jared Donovan, they provided an overview of the history of participatory design and also drew upon their own experiences with design-oriented perspectives on robotics and give practical examples of how to engage various stakeholders in the design process. You can watch the recording via our website.
The next seminar will be held on 28th April and is in recognition of World Day of Health and Safety at Work. Dr Matthias Guertler of UTS and one of the Centre’s co-leads for the Designing Socio-Technical Robotic Solutions program will incorporate the findings from his research collaboration with SafeWork (NSW Government) that aimed to create design principles and guidelines for work health and safety in a shared environment, where humans and autonomous collaborative robots work side by side.
Sign up to the mailing list to receive our newsletter, Cobotics Quarterly and to be the first to hear about our events.
INDUSTRY UPDATE
Action Plan to Supercharge Research Commercialisation
by Deon de Saldanha, Director, Industry Engagement (Science and Engineering)
In February, the federal government unveiled its reform agenda to increase research commercialisation in Australia in the form of its “University Research Commercialisation Action Plan”.
An extract of the minister’s foreword in this document reads:
“In a rapidly changing, highly competitive global economy, Australia’s future prosperity lies in leveraging the excellence of our research sector. Australia has world-class universities, and our researchers produce pioneering foundational research. Millions of people around the world rely on technologies and products that were made possible by Australian research breakthroughs. Too often, however, this research is not taken further down the pipeline towards production here in Australia and too often Australian universities and businesses are missing out on opportunities to commercialise Australian research in ways that benefit our economy and our society.”
Proposed reforms will focus research effort on Australia’s six National Manufacturing Priorities: Defence, Space, Food & Beverage, Resource Technology & Critical Minerals, Medical Products and Recycling & Clean Energy. Robotics increasingly plays a key role in advancing these industries.
One area of particular interest is the intention to establish a foundation of people skilled in university–industry collaboration. In this regard, government intends to establish new research fellowship and industry PhD schemes for over 800 industry fellows and 1,800 industry PhDs, over a ten-year period. This is anticipated to encourage both mobility and collaboration between university researchers and industry, as well as build Australia’s capacity for, and understanding of, research translation. $296m has been earmarked for these schemes.
This presents an exciting new opportunity for industry partners to access subsidised, industry focussed, research expertise. Finer details about these schemes, including the selection process and level of funding, are expected to be announced June/July 2022.
Figure 26: Career pathways available under new industry PhD and fellowship initiatives
Source: University Research Commercialisation Action Plan, Feb 2022, Page79: Australian Government, Department of Education, Skills, and Employment. For more information, the minister’s announcement can be found here.
|
