I enjoy helping people to achieve. In the university system I’ve been able to help students develop their engineering, research and communication skills.
Postgraduate teaching
I have been part of the advisory team for the following postgradute students.
Graduated
Gavin Taylor (as associate advisor) – Investigating visually guided flight behaviour of honeybees in a virtual-reality flight arena
Owen Bawden (as primary advisor) – Design of a Lightweight, Modular Robotic Vehicle for the Sustainable Intensification of Broadacre Agriculture
Patrick Ross (as primary advisor) – Vision-based obstacle detection in field environments
Scott Heath (as associate advisor) – Evolving spatial and temporal lexicons across different cognitive architectures
In progress
Andrew English (as primary advisor) – Vision-based guidance and localisation in field environments.
Undergraduate teaching
I’ve taught the following units.
ENB329 – Mechatronics Project 2
In this unit each student team builds a mobile robot capable of competing in the RoboCup small size league (F180). The unit covers a wide range of topics including smart phone development, path planning/obstacle avoidance, computer vision, mechanical and electrical design. This is a rather fun unit to teach and for the students. There aren’t many units where the students start working on their assignments before the semester starts. Perhaps the most interesting part (for me at least) is the communication lecture which uses, among other material, Covey’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People”.
As part of the unit each team puts together a video highlighting their project some of which have been made public. Here is an incomplete list.
2015
2014
2013
ENB458/ENN580 – Modern Control Systems
I co-taught this unit with Peter Corke. We covered State Space modelling, controller and observer design, optimal control and discrete control. In the practicals the students designed a parallel elastic actuator and an inverted pendulum mobile robot.
METR3800 – Mechatronics Project 2
I helped out Ben Upcroft with this unit where we taught the students how to build a mobile robot. The students built robots that could compete in the RoboCup junior soccer competition.
METR4202 – Advanced Control and Robotics
In this unit I covered robotic concepts such as forward and inverse kinematics, velocity and control, and path and trajectory control as well as control techniques such as frequency response and state space modelling, controller and observer design. In this unit the students designed a serial elastic actuator and built a robot arm that could follow a path while avoiding obstacles.
Undergraduate Projects
I have officially and unofficially supervised many undergraduate theses and projects. Here is a list. Let me know if I have forgotten anyone!
2015
Daniel Richards – User interface for an agricultural multi-robot system
2014
Jasmin James – Energy efficient legged locomotion
Luke Asgill
Greg van der Merwe – Evaluation of robotics applications using a Smartphone
Mirren King-Smith – Electromechanical design and Analysis of a Robotic Leg Joint with Variable Stiffness
Ryan Wake – Mechanical design of a lightweight leg system
2012
Kyran Findlater – Energy Efficient Light Source for Mobile Robotics
2011
Patrick Ross – Energy Efficient Actuation for a Controllable Stiffness Monoped
Ricky Chow –
Angus Cummings –
James Wall – “Riding Kangaroos to Work” Biologically Inspired Energy Efficient Robot Locomotion
2010
Nickolas Calver – Detecting Proximity and Texture using a Biomimetic Whisker system
Jessica Wrigley – Hybrid Passive Dynamic Hind Leg Design for a Bio-inspired Quadrupedal Rat Robot
Hilton Bristow – GPU accelerated Appearance Based SLAM
Daniel Clarke – Monocular Vision Based Obstacle Avoidance
Shao-Kuang Fang (William) – Robot Local Navigation
YeHua Hsu (Mike) – Robotic Docking Station: An Autonomous Charging System
2009
Joel McGrath – Omni Robot – Omni Vision System
Ezra Zigenbine – Omni Robot – Drive and Sensor System
Kieran Wynn – Omni Robot – Docking and Power System
Chris Lehnert – A Continuous Isotropic Spherical Omnidirectional Drive System
Scott Heath – Interactive web interface for robots
Marcel Giermanski – Gold Code based Ultrasonic Obstacle Detection System
Ryan Wong – A Digital Wireless Neural Recording System
Gavin Taylor – Environment replication for insects
Below were unofficial associate supervisions during my PhD.
2004
Monte Macdiarmid – Intelligent Offence for an Autonomous Robot Soccer Team (travelled to RoboCup)
Michael Graham – Intelligence System
Stephen Nuske – Vision System (travelled to RoboCup)
Adam Kerr – Motion Control
John Clair – Kicker Redesign for the 2004 RoboRoos Team
2003
Issac Linnet – Motion Control
Leighton Carr – Vision System (travelled to RoboCup)
Joanna Wu – Vision System
Doug Turk – Electrical System
2002
Jason Hirsch – High Speed Spread Spectrum Communication
Chris Nolan – Enhancements to a Global Vision System for F180 League Robotic Soccer