Professor Kurniawati Appointed as SmartSat CRC Professorial Chair

Congratulations to The Australian National University (ANU) expert Professor Hanna Kurniawati, who has been appointed as the SmartSat CRC Professorial Chair for System Autonomy, Intelligence, and Decision Making. Professor Kurniawati is ARIAM Hub’s Theme Lead on Planning and Control and part of the Hub’s Executive Leadership Team.

SmartSat is Australia’s leading space research centre – where a team of Australia’s top researchers come together to spearhead the development of next generation space technologies.

“I am grateful and excited for this opportunity. Space technologies are entering a new era that will become increasingly important to our daily lives, and being in the Southern hemisphere, Australia has a geographical advantage in this domain,” she said.

Professor Kurniawati is based in the ANU School of Computing, and has significant experience in robotics, planning under uncertainty, robot motion planning, reinforcement learning, and integrated  planning and learning.

She has spent much of her career researching ways to develop decision-making technologies that would enable robots to operate more reliably and more robustly in cluttered and confined remote environments, as well as in crowded urban environments.

Read more…

 

ARC Linkage Grant to Hub CIs and Hub Partner

Congratulations to our Deputy Director Technology & Impact, Prof. Stefan Williams, and our Theme Lead, Dr. Viorela Ila, on the award of an 2022 ARC Linkage Grant in collaboration with Hub Partner Reach Robotics. Together they have been awarded $420,000 to investigate Visual Methods for Advanced Automation of Underwater Manipulation. The research will seek to increase the autonomy of underwater robotic systems engaged in intervention and inspection tasks.

About Australian Research Council Linkage Program

The ARC Linkage Program promotes national and international research partnerships between researchers and business, industry, community organisations and other publicly funded research agencies to facilitate the transfer of skills, knowledge and ideas as a basis for securing commercial and other benefits of research.

The Linkage Projects grant opportunity supports projects which initiate or develop long term strategic research alliances to apply advanced knowledge to problems, acquire new knowledge and as a basis for securing commercial and other benefits of research.

Hub Commences with Kick-off Workshop

To mark its official commencement, ARIAM Research Hub held its Kick-off Workshop and Inaugural AGM in the Boardroom of the University of Sydney on Wednesday, November 30th, 2022. Bringing together the ARC, Hub Members and their team to discuss the key elements for creating a successful research collaboration and to lay the foundations of a well-functioning, vibrant research Hub. The workshop was hosted by ARIAM’s Director, Professor Ian Manchester, with keynote presentations from Liz Visher, Director – Major Investments at the ARC, and Distinguished Professor Peter Corke, Director of the QUT Centre for Robotics and Strategic Advisor to ARIAM Research Hub.

The Australian Robotic Inspection and Asset Management Hub officially commenced on November 1st, 2022. Led by The University of Sydney, the Hub spans 3 academic institutions, including QUT and ANU, and is supported by 10 industry partners. Its overall objective is to enable research collaboration at the forefront of robotics science to build industry capability and technology transfer pathways. Our program of research aims to overcome key hurdles to develop intelligent, autonomous systems capable of inspecting and maintaining infrastructure and other critical assets in real-time.