Melbourne School of Engineering

Spotlight - Major Research Projects in the School

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Water Distribution and Allocation

Saving 70 billion litres of water for Victorians (header) 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.

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Hydrogen-fuelled Vehicle Technologies

Researchers are working on a real alternative to fuels that emit carbon dioxide (header) In 2007, a State Government grant of $1.2 million was awarded to the University of Melbourne and industry collaborators Ford Australia and Haskel Australia to build a highly efficient low cost hydrogen fuelled engine and fuel tank. Researchers at the University are working to help make hydrogen a real alternative to fuels that emit carbon dioxide, with the potential that this grant will open up a whole new market for low cost fuel efficient hydrogen run vehicles.

For over a decade, the University has been undertaking research into advanced, hydrogen combustion engines and in the last five years, it has developed into a cross faculty project bringing together mechanical, electrical and chemical engineers from within the School. Researchers are investigating a novel approach to high density compression and storage of hydrogen. Much of the research is being conducted on both the University and Ford premises, as part of their collaborative venture, the Advanced Centre for Automotive Research Technology (ACART).

This project is being undertaken by researchers in the Department of Mechanical Engineering.

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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. 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.

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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.

 

 

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 who are visually impaired. 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 that sits 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 chip, 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 at the University and Assistant Director of the Bionic Ear Institute.

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2009-10 Engineering research projects by research theme:

 

2010 MERIT Research Summary

The Melbourne Engineering Research Institute (MERIT) has published the second edition of the MERIT Research Summary, which provides an overview of all research currently being conducted at the Melbourne School of Engineering. For an overview of research in 2010

or in sections, below.