Major Engineering Research Projects

Featured on this page are four major research projects which demonstrate the breadth of our research. To view listing of all our projects, see the ‘All Research Projects’ on the right of this page.

Water Distribution and Allocation

Saving 70 billion litres of water for Victorians

An IT-based water management system that improves irrigation efficiency has been developed by University engineers and Rubicon Systems Australia.

The water-saving technology, known as Total Channel Control®, modernises ageing irrigation infrastructure with accurate water flow measurement and precision flow control. Radio networked sensors and actuators provide irrigation managers with detailed information about the distribution system and provide real time system wide water balance information. Unlike manually operated systems, Total Channel Control responds in real time to problems such as leaks, equipment failure and storms. Under a normal water usage scenario it is expected that 70 billion litres of water — a fifth of what Melbourne uses — will be saved annually in Victoria through the implementation of this technology.

This project is led by the Dean of Engineering, Professor Iven Mareels.

Further Information

IT Innovation: ‘GiFi’ — Cheaper, faster transfer of audio and video data

In early 2008, researchers unveiled a new silicon chip (‘GiFi’) developed in Melbourne that is predicted to change the way household gadgets, such as televisions and phones, talk to each other. As the integrated transceiver developed is extremely small — a tiny five-millimetre-a-side chip — it can be embedded into devices.

This technology will enable the wireless transfer of audio and video data at up to five gigabits per second, ten times the current maximum wireless transfer rate, at one-tenth the cost. One potential use is as a replacement for HDMI cables in home entertainment systems. The researchers are from the Melbourne University-based laboratories of NICTA, the national information and communications technology research centre. Short-range wireless technology is a competitive global field, and Professor Stan Skafidas and his team at Melbourne are the first to demonstrate a working transceiver-on-a-chip that uses CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) technology — the cheap technology that silicon chips are built with.

The high-powered team (led by Professor Skafidas) which worked on the development of the chip included 10 PhD students from the University of Melbourne and collaborated with companies such as IBM during the research.

The technology is now in commercialisation through a spin-off company called Nitero, based in the US and working with Samsung, Intel, Cisco and Dell through WiGi — the gigabit wireless alliance. It is expected to reach market in 2012.

Further Information

Leading Nanotechnology Research

Treating diseases with new drug delivery systems

Professor Frank Caruso is leading a team of nanotechnology researchers who are working on a new generation of drug delivery systems to improve healthcare and medical outcomes. Nanotechnology involves the development of systems at the tiny scale of a few nanometres (one nanometre is one billionth of a metre). When applied by researchers, this allows drugs to be packaged in tiny particles that deliver medical treatments to diseased cells only, while reducing toxic effects. This important work in developing systems for delivering drugs is being used to treat cancer, AIDS and other poorly treated diseases. Professor Caruso is involved in collaborations with researchers at Australia’s leading biomedical institutes, including the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research, Austin Hospital, Baker Heart Medical Institute and the Bionic Ear Institute. Professor Caruso is also involved in a project on vaccine delivery, in collaboration with the University’s Department of Immunology and Microbiology.

Further Information

From the Bionic Ear… to the Bionic Eye

Restoring the sense of vision to people with retinal diseases

In the 1970s, ground breaking research at the University of Melbourne lead to a successful cochlear implant — or Bionic Ear — which is still regarded as one of Australia’s finest scientific achievements. Today, our researchers are leading Australia’s efforts to develop a bionic eye that will help people with vision impairment. A bionic eye implant could bypass diseased cells in the retina and electrically stimulate the remaining viable nerve cells. It works with a computer chip and electrode array that sit in the back of the eye, linked up to a mini video camera built into glasses that are worn by the patient. Images captured by the camera would be transmitted to the implant, which would translate into electrical impulses that the brain can interpret. Researchers at the University are involved in Bionic Vision Australia (BVA), a partnership of world-leading Australian research institutions collaborating to develop an advanced retinal prosthesis — or bionic eye — to restore the sense of vision to people with degenerative or inherited retinal disease.

The partnership brings together world leading experts in ophthalmology, bio-engineering, material biocompatibility, vision science and wireless integrated circuit design.

The Director of Bionic Vision Australia, Professor Anthony Burkitt, is Head of the Neuro-Engineering Group and Chair of Bio-Signals Systems at the University.

Further Information

All Research Projects

SEARCH OUR CURRENT RESEARCH DATABASE HERE.

 

RESEARCH THEMES

Biomedical Engineering

Information and Communication Systems

Structured Matter

Sustainable Systems and Energy

Kathryn Mumford in Antartica

Research spotlight

Bioremediation in Antarctica

Researchers from the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering are working to preserve Antarctica by cleaning up the contamination, particularly fuel spills and waste disposal sites of past expeditions. Bases in Antarctica are powered by diesel and occasionally leaks and spills occur, sometimes as a result of normal operations and sometimes caused by incidents due to stress caused by freezing and thawing of pipes delivering fuel.

Dr Kathryn Mumford is a Research Fellow with the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre (PFPC) at the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Kathryn designs in situ remediation systems that biodegrade fuel contaminants and bind heavy metals. In particular her work focuses on contaminants located in cold regions such as Antarctica and the Arctic.

We have problems with water fluxes, because of the large amount of snow melt that we have at the beginning of summer. We also have problems with freeze and thawing, so over the summer you get wide ranges in temperature which results in freezing and thawing of our barrier material. Also at low temperatures reaction rates or different processes are a lot slower, so we have to design our system according to that.

Despite these challenges, the cleanup operations of the Particulate Fluids Processing Centre have yielded positive results over the last decade.