Salah Sukkarieh
- Chief Investigator
- Professor
- Institution: University of Sydney
Bio: Salah Sukkarieh is the Professor of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at the University of Sydney. He was awarded the NSW Science and Engineering Award for Excellence in Engineering and Information and Communications Technologies in 2014; one of Australia’s Most Innovative Engineers by Engineers Australia in 2016; in 2017 the CSIRO Eureka Prize for Leadership in Innovation and Science, one of 11 Launch Food Innovators worldwide, and the AFR True Leaders Game Changer; and in 2019 was nominated as one of the 2019 NSW Australian of the Year, as well as being recognised by Engineers Australia’s as one of their Centenary Heroes. Salah is a Fellow of Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering (ATSE) and has over 500 academic and industry publications in robotics and intelligent systems.
From 2019-2022, Salah was the CEO of Agerris, an Agtech start-up company spun out of the ACFR, where he led the manufacturing and commercialisation of on-farm robotic solutions to improve agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability. He was the Director Research and Innovation at the Australian Centre for Field Robotics from 2007-2018, where he led the strategic research and industry engagement program in the world’s largest field robotics institute. Salah has received over $70m in university-industry-government research grants in the last ten years and is recognised as an international expert in the research, development and commercialisation of field robotic systems. He has led several robotics and intelligent systems R&D projects in logistics (Patrick Stevedores), commercial aviation (Qantas), aerospace (various national and international agencies), education (Australian Government), environment monitoring (Australian Government), agriculture (horticulture, grains, meat and livestock) and mining (Rio Tinto).
Research Expertise: Salah research focusses on autonomous systems science, specifically in the link between data fusion, optimisation and control, and new approaches and techniques for large-scale machine learning and data analytics. His research has provided impactful solutions to barriers in important large-scale engineering operations across various industries. Examples include:
- Navigation systems for autonomous air and ground robots used across various Australian industries.
- Machine learning techniques implemented on industry and government funded aerial surveillance systems for environment monitoring.
- Multi-Agent autonomous mathematical paradigms and algorithms used in the mining, agriculture, security and logistics industries.
- Robotic and data analytic systems for crop and animal monitoring systems for Australian agriculture
- Machine optimisation and learning systems for commercial aviation.