University of Western Australia

Overview

The University of Western Australia (UWA) is in the top 100 Universities in the world ranked by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. UWA is regarded as one of Australia’s top research institutions attracting researchers of world standing across the range of disciplines, with international leaders in many diverse fields. UWA is supporting the Australian Government’s commitment to long term national security and sovereign defence capability by contributing with leading strengths in marine engineering, human factors, automation and sensing, astronomy and supercomputing, advanced sensing, quantum technologies, space governance and exploration and comprehensive health research. Research areas include:

Capabilities

Next generation technologies in remote operations, new materials for sensor fabrication, novel sensor architectures to sensor readouts and data analysis. Development of new class infrared detection, imaging and multi/hyperspectral sensors, terahertz band sensing, optical/fibre systems, high sensitive magnetometers single-chip gas, chemical, pressure and temperature sensors.
Computer vision for ground, underwater or ground platforms with focus on target detection, recognition, classification, tracking and subtle change detection, particularly tools for machine learning in 3D biometric, RGB-D object segmentation and recognition, robot grasping and sub-sea ecology projects.
Data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence including new algorithms, artificial neural networks and computational intelligence for optimisation, modelling and control.
Designing and building hardware, electronics and software for driving, walking, swimming/diving and flying robots.
Development of intelligent systems, artificial neural networks, biomedical engineering, control, digital signal processing, parallel and distributed computing, image processing, pattern recognition and software engineering.
Signal and image processing, separation of acoustic signals using remote sensors, audio-visual data, and human speech recognition systems - for human machine interface.
Work design, resilience and performance related to the cognitive mechanisms that underlie human performance in safety-critical work contexts.
Prospective memory, situational awareness, human interaction with automated systems and error from interruptions, distraction and multitasking.
Research partner with RAN on submarine crews and the interface of new technology in future submarines to ensure optimal performance
Development of new antibiotics with target components for virulence but not growth of
bacteria, to reduce development of resistance. Extensive experience in containment level 3 work (PC3) and experience in Biosafety Level 2 and 3 work in both experimental and animal laboratories.
Chemical measurement of stress, assessment tools for screening and early detection of mental health problems, remote health provision using wearables.
Oceans expertise in in situ measurement, remote sensing, modelling of surface and internal waves, currents, sediment, morphology, and biogeochemical properties
Research in turbulent flows, ocean circulation models, and laboratory work on transport and turbulent mixing within oceans
Expertise relevant to defence includes the dynamics of large amplitude internal waves and the ocean response to tropical cyclone forcing
Expertise and a significant research portfolio in floating vessel dynamics, ocean-structure interaction, offshore anchoring dynamics and geotechnical engineering
Expertise in metocean dynamics and ocean forecasting, offshore fixed and floating structural engineering, hydrodynamics and structure interaction, and asset management
ICRAR’s astronomers, engineers and data specialists are contributing to the end-to-end design, construction, data processing and science extraction for the SKA. Current engineering research includes SKA Signal and Data Transport (SaDT) phase and frequency synchronisation studies. UWA has developed coherent detection of digital communication using broad-band phased stabilisation system.
UWAs astronomers are regular uses of space telescopes with guaranteed time observations on many upcoming NASA, ESA and other space agency missions studying gravity, dark matter and energy production. In particular, UWA specialises in the federation of data acquired across the full wavelength range (x-ray to radio), by combining space-telescope data with ground-based radio and other datasets through innovative software and big data management
In support of next-generation computational technologies, the Frequency and Quantum Metrology Research Group are world leaders in precision measurement involving frequency, time and quantum systems. Research includes miniaturised gravity gradiometer, interferometric EM gradiometer, microwave sensors and precision oscillators and clocks. The group uses advanced mathematical methods and numerical techniques to model the dynamics of quantum systems and investigate quantum algorithms.
UWA’s QUISA research group (Quantum Information, Simulation and Algorithm) combines expertise in quantum physics, pure and applied mathematics, data processing, machine learning, computing temporal logic and algorithm, which provides the promise of solving certain problems of practical significance otherwise intractable. The QUISA group explores applications in quantum simulation, data processing, financial risk analysis, machine learning and classification, taking advantage of intrinsic quantum correlations and quantum parallelism. In particular, they examine which parts of existing classical algorithms can be sped up in the quantum setting with deterministic queries.
The OzGrav-UWA Centre areas include: technology for gravitational wave detection, gravitational wave data analysis, multi-messenger astronomy and astrophysics, spin-off technologies and teaching and learning of Einsteinian Physics.
UWA researchers include private, public international and comparative lawyers with particular research interests at the interface between science, technology and law. Topics include the governance of satellites, drones and remote sensing technologies, and the use of data gathered from satellites, drones and autonomous vehicles for surveillance, monitoring and law enforcement.
Our researchers are published widely on a range of social, political, philosophical and environmental issues underpinning space exploration, including space debris in the orbital commons, the robotic exploration of Mars, space as a global commons, space tourism and extra-planetary mobilities.