Transcript of Building sensors to enable a digital innovation 23/5/2022
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[Image changes to show Chris Krishna-Pillay talking on the main screen, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Hello everyone and welcome to this very exciting launch of our Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform. My name is Chris Krishna-Pillay and it’s great to have so many of our CSIRO colleagues here as well as stakeholders from a number of other partner organisations. Before we get too carried away let me first acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land from which I am broadcasting today, the Bunarong people. I pay my respects to their Elders past and present, and I extend that respect to the traditional lands of everybody we have joining the call today, all over the country. Now, there’s a few things we need to get right here before we get too deep into this, and that is your role. Your role is significant. The first part of that of course is to engage with each other because obviously there’ll be a bunch of very, very good presenters speaking to you today.
But of course on the right hand side of the screen you’re looking at now there is a Chat function and that’s where you can engage with each other. So, if you want to have conversations, get something off your chest potentially, answer small problems, or have technical issues, you can pop those into the Chat function as well and we’ll do our best to have those addressed. That’s the place for that kind of thing. If there is a specific question that you would like to ask one of our speakers today the place to put that is in the Q&A function which is also on the right hand side of the screen but it looks a little different. The Chat function I believe is a speech bubble, the Q&A function is more like a question mark, so a specific question should go in there.
[Image continues to show Chris talking on the main screen, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
My advice to you is, don’t wait. As soon as that question occurs to you get it in there because tradition dictates that we’ll have too many questions than we have time to answer, so the sooner you get them in there, the more likely they are to get to the top of the queue. And we’ll do our best to get to all of the questions before we run out of time today, although we haven’t got a lot of that time. OK, to kick things off, it is now my pleasure to introduce you to CSIRO’s Chief Scientist, Professor Bronwyn Fox.
[Image changes to show Professor Bronwyn Fox talking on the main screen, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen, and text appears: Next generation sensor technology, Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform launch 23 May 2022]
Prof. Bronwyn Fox: Thank you so much Chris, and hi everyone. I’d also like to acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation and pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. It gives me such great pleasure to welcome you to the launch of CSIRO’s new Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform, or FSP. Welcome to our Team CSIRO, people working in this area, and welcome to our partners joining us from the university sector and industry. It’s really wonderful to see an ecosystem coming together around this FSP from the very start.
Thank you sincerely to our FSP Leader, Dr Yulia Uvarova, for the invitation to speak, and for the opportunity to be part of the beginning of this really exciting new journey. I’m now around six months into my role as CSIRO’s Chief Scientist, and one of the areas that I’ve been really interested in are the FSPs. Our FSP Programme is a major investment for CSIRO and a big part of our strategy to stay at the forefront of discovery. Our FSPs are critical to the way that we do science. They are an investment in our own cutting edge, transformative research, where we push the boundaries of science, and lean in to the seemingly impossible. There’s nothing more exciting than breakthrough research and as Chief Scientist I’m so pleased to be part of the growth of our FSPs, including this one, which will create new sensor technologies that will be transformative across multiple science domains and industries. As you may be aware, I have a background in Advanced Manufacturing and Industry 4.0. So, sensor technology is really relevant and really exciting for me. I’ve previously published papers on integrating graphene into carbon fibre composites, and using the piezoelectric properties of graphene as a sensor for detecting damage or mechanical stresses in the composite material.
[Image continues to show Bronwyn talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
I also had the enormous privilege to be part of an expert working group, working with former Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, on the Internet of Things, and it highlighted to me more than ever that sensors are absolutely critical if we’re to capture the benefit of the Internet of Things in Australia in a full, in the full way that we can. So, the potential for Advanced Sensor Technology is really vast. And as sensor technologies continue to evolve they open up a whole new world to us, a world where technology can help us make reliable human like decisions based on local and global data. Autonomous sensors are essentially a bridge that connect the physical and digital worlds. They’re a part of a cyber-physical system creating new and exponential ways for us to augment and accelerate our science as well as our industries. They have the potential to revolutionise digital platforms with applications impacting multiple domains, including: health monitoring and medical technologies; optimising the way we process mineral ores to minimise waste, energy use, and impact on the environment; environmental monitoring for our oceans, rivers and lands; enhanced quality assurance for agricultural products; and as I’ve mentioned advanced manufacturing.
Our ultimate goal is to advance this technology and get it out into the world where it can have impact. To do that this FSP will see researchers and engineers work together in a Sensor Prototyping Hub to accelerate Horizon 3 research from the lab, to prototype, to field trials. The Hub will work across all CSIRO business units, FSP submissions, as a test bed for new and existing engineering capabilities. It’s a fantastic example of us applying skills across boundaries, and across the organisation for greater scale and impact. It goes without saying that this research will require significant collaboration across sectors and disciplines. With our deep, and broad domain experience, CSIRO is uniquely placed to help with this. We have a strong track record of transformational sensor technology and automation. But we are also the most connected player in Australia’s, in the Australian innovation ecosystem, working with thousands of businesses across every sector of the Australian economy, every major Australian university, and with all levels of Federal and State Government.
[Image continues to show Bronwyn talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
There is huge potential for this technology to support and build future industries for Australia, and I’m really looking forward to Team CSIRO, together with our partners, playing a key role in helping to facilitate that. Again, many thanks Yulia for the opportunity to be involved today, and to our partners for joining us and contributing to the way that we do science. I wish you all the very best for the sessions today, and I hope you will leave here inspired about the potential of sensor technology. If I can ever be of any assistance, don’t hesitate to reach out to my office. I’m really genuinely keen to support this important impactful science in any way and every way that I can. Thank you so much.
[Image changes to show Chris talking to the camera, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Thank you Bronwyn. Thank you indeed. Now, there’s some things that people are prepared to put in the Chat on the right hand side of the screen, and some things people are not prepared to put in there. If you’re having one of those weird, slightly embarrassing moments, where you’re not 100% sure what an autonomous sensor really is, that’s the kind of thing you could put in there, but I get that that’s confronting, it’s embarrassing to have to admit that. So, don’t be embarrassed. We’ve prepared a very nifty video that will explain this to you in context. So, let’s have a look at that now. Enjoy.
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Narrator: Autonomous sensors are the bridge that connects the physical and digital worlds.
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As sensor technologies evolve, a whole new world opens up, a world where technology can make reliable human like decisions based on local and global data, bringing forth new ideas for existing fields in science to be explored.
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And we are equipped to be at the forefront of this transformation.
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Through a combination of fundamental sensor research and autonomous engineering solutions, we will deliver technologies that drive innovation in areas like environmental monitoring, mining,
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agriculture, and manufacturing.
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Our Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform will address the need to measure the most challenging Australian environmental and industrial conditions with increasing accuracy, sensitivity, traceability and resolution.
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Australia, with its unique geography, environment and industries, will be a major beneficiary of this technology’s future.
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For the mining industry, new advanced sensing systems that measure lithium in bulk ore, a feat never achieved before, will advance Australia’s opportunity to supply critical resources to global renewables and battery industries.
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Advances in autonomous Earth observations will deliver platforms and sensors to help monitor and manage Australia’s marine resources.
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New sensor research will create new tools for the biological verification of a broad range of Australian agricultural products
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including portable and autonomous sensors which can be used to track products from the farm to consumer.
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Autonomous sensor technologies will transform many markets and industries worldwide.
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An exciting new era of possibility has begun.
[Music plays and the image changes to show the CSIRO logo, and text appears: CSIRO, Australia’s National Science Agency]
[Image changes to show Chris on the main screen talking to the camera and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Wow, now you know what an autonomous sensor is. Let’s find out a bit more about the FSP and how it’s going to go about doing this work. And what better place to start than the top. It’s my pleasure now to introduce you to the Autonomous Sensor FSP Director, Yulia Uvarova.
[Image changes to show Yulia Uvarova talking on the main screen, and then the image changes to show a split circle with a photo of fish in one side, and a river in the other]
Yulia Uvarova: Thank you very much Bronwyn and Chris for the introduction. Good afternoon everybody and thank you for joining us today for the update on the Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform. I would like to thank everybody who dialled in today, all our CSIRO colleagues for supporting us on this journey, and a number of external guests who show sincere interest in the FSP. I hope we can become collaborators and partners in the future.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a network pattern over the top of a world globe and text appears: Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform, Yulia Uvarova, 23 May 2022]
My name is Yulia Uvarova and I have the privilege to lead the Autonomous Sensors FSP, which I joined in October 2021.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing text on a dark blue screen: Autonomous Sensors, Future Science Platform, Dr Yulia Uvarova]
This Future Science Platform was funded in Round 4 of CSIRO’s Strategic Funding, and today the Autonomous Sensors FSP leadership team would like to introduce you to the platform, our research focus, and progress to date.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing boomerangs on the right and text on the left: I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands that we’re meeting on today and pay our respect to their Elders past and present]
And I also would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands that we’re meeting on today and pay our respect to their Elders past and present. For myself in Perth, Western Australia, it is the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a digital representation of the different sensor technologies and text appears above and on the representation, Combining fundamental sensor research with autonomous engineering solutions to provide new advanced sensing and platform technologies, Innovations in sensor technology; Increased accuracy, sensitivity, traceability, and resolution; Autonomous sensor platforms; Sensor networks; Intelligent networks; Digital decision making]
The digital transformation of our science and of industry in Australia relies on sensors to connect the physical world to digital systems. Sensors allow us to collect, integrate, and interpret large volumes of information enabling rapid understanding and prediction of the physical world. Without the development of new transformational sensors in autonomous sensor platforms, the digital revolution and our scientific ambitions would be limited by the constraints of current sensor technology. Our purpose in this FSP is to combine fundamental sensor research with autonomous engineering solutions to provide new advanced sensing and platform technologies.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing photos of four different landscapes and text appears: Technologies adapted for the uniquely Australian challenges of harsh environmental conditions and remote locations]
And these new technologies will be developed for the environmental monitoring, health monitoring, mining, agriculture, and manufacturing domains, as importantly, they will be adapted for the uniquely Australian challenges of harsh environmental conditions and remote locations.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a diagram of the structure of the FSP showing Pillars on the left, Horizon 3 Science Areas in the centre, and Domain Areas on the right and text heading appears: Autonomous Sensors FSP Target Areas]
This slide shows you the structure of the FSP. The Autonomous Sensors Future Science Platform is underpinned by three pillars. We have two science themes, Fundamental Sensor Research, and Advanced Engineering for Autonomy. And the further pillar of the FSP is a new initiative called the Sensor Prototyping Hub, which Bronwyn mentioned before.
The FSP will coordinate and grow CSIRO’s current strengths in fundamental sensor development and autonomy with this new Sensor Prototyping Hub. The Hub will fast track new technology engineering development for trial deployment, and will further build our engineering capabilities. The FSP will hire postdoctoral fellows and early career engineers to focus on science impact delivery which meets the needs of the Domain areas shown on the right side of the slide. Our Horizon 3 Science Areas are listed in the middle of the slide. And what do we mean by Horizon 3? As you may know CSIRO is using the McKinsey’s model called the Three Horizons of Growth. Horizon 3 ideas in this model are all about introducing entirely new elements to what we do that don’t exist today, and thus creating genuinely new opportunities.
For the Autonomous Sensors FSP, the science areas are directed towards the need to measure and detect with increasing accuracy, sensitivity, traceability, and resolution. We live in the most challenging Australian environmental, and industrial conditions, often with limited access or local resources. The Domain application areas shown on the right side are where CSIRO is already heavily invested and the plan being the early adopters of new technology and algorithms developed in the FSP.
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Our team and work structure are shown on this slide. The Autonomous Sensors FSP is supported by ten Business Units within CSIRO, including Mineral Resources, NCMI, Agriculture and Food, Health and Biosecurity, Data 61, Manufacturing, Land and Water, Space and Astronomy, and Energy. The science and deputy directors from these divisions, form our Science Steering Committee. Briana Ganly is leading our Fundamental Sensor Research Team, and Andreas Marouchos is leading our Advanced Engineering for Autonomy Team, and you will hear from them a little bit later.
Each project in our portfolio has a Project Leader who is also a primary supervisor for a post-doctoral fellow. We’re looking at employing about 12 early career researchers to work on the core projects. The Sensor Prototyping Hub will also have a leader, and will attract six early career engineers. The FSP has also a fantastic support team, including our programme manager, science, comms and AP support. And I would like to thank all the business units, their directors, researchers, and support staff for all the great work in setting up and helping us to run the Autonomous Sensors FSP. One thing that I also want to highlight here is the diversity amongst the Autonomous Sensors FSP in terms of gender, cultures, ages, and backgrounds. We have good diversity in our leadership, and project leader team and we continue to focus on diversity during our advertising and recruitment campaigns for early career researchers.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a circular diagram on the left of the Sensor Prototyping Hub and a timeline can be seen on the right, and text heading appears: Sensor Prototyping Hub]
While we have formed our core project portfolio in two science themes, the third pillar of the FSP – The Sensor Prototyping Hub – is currently under development. The Hub is a highly experimental, and new approach within CSIRO to draw on, and further build the extensive engineering skills within the organisation to enable the acceleration of Horizon 3 research from the lab to prototypes, towards field trials. The Hub will be launched in the second year of the FSP, that is in 2022/23 Financial Year. If successful, the Hub could continue to provide impact for CSIRO by operating after the conclusion of the FSP.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing four photos of different CSIRO activities and text heading and text appears: Our focus, Capability development, Technology development, Horizon 3 science, Transition to Bus, adoption by domain areas]
Now, our focus is similar to all other Future Science Platforms supported by CSIRO’s strategic investment in these initiatives. We will develop new capability and talent for Australia’s innovation system, through our early career researchers. We will deliver Horizon 3 science and we identified the main areas. We will develop a series of hardware and software technologies and solutions with the vision of transitioning these technologies to respective business units or markets with the ultimate goal that the output of our work will be useful, useable, and used, and adopted by the main areas such as Agriculture, Mining, Advanced Manufacturing, Health and Medtech, and Environmental Monitoring.
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As all other research programmes, missions, and Future Science Platforms in CSIRO, we have our own path to impact with defined time frames based on our research objectives. Through our focus and developed pathway framework, we’re aspiring to deliver environmental, social, and economic impact to Australia.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a diagram a timeline at the bottom of the slide moving from 2021/2022 to 2025/2025, and photos of different CSIRO activities appear on the slide, and text heading appears: Autonomous Sensors FSP Timeline]
The Autonomous Sensors FSP has approved the funding for five years, and its timeline and planned activities are summarised in this slide to give you a snapshot of our plans. During the first year of our existence we have built a portfolio of projects for two science themes. We’re currently recruiting post-doctoral fellows to work on this project, and we have developed the model for the Sensor Prototyping Hub. Next year, while our science projects are up and running, we will be focusing on building the Sensor Prototyping Hub, recruiting of early career engineers, building a portfolio of new projects for the Hub, and we will have our first annual conference.
In subsequent years, the focus will be on: delivering the Horizon 3 science; technology development, and testing in the lab first, and further testing during field trials; building partnerships with the university sector, Government and industry, if they want to invest in various projects or milestones as these develop.
Ultimately the projects will be finalised, technologies transferred to the business units or commercial partners. We’re also aiming that our early career researchers, and engineers will be on the path of their successful careers either within CSIRO, or elsewhere in the Australian innovation system.
[Image changes to show a website and text appears: For more information about the Autonomous Sensors FSP visit our website, https://research.csiro.au/autonomous-sensors-fsp]
We will keep regular updates on our activities, plans, and news through our research website which is now live, and other future comms avenues such as newsletters, platforms like LinkedIn and annual conference.
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Finally, I would like to thank CSIRO Science Council, our Chief Scientist, the Business Units, and the full FSP Team for all their work and support that goes into running this exciting initiative. And now, I would like to invite Briana Ganly to give us an update on the Fundamental Sensor Research theme. Briana is the team leader within the Autonomous Sensors FSP. She’s also a team leader in Mineral Resources. Briana is a physicist by trade, and is very passionate about developing new technologies based on various complex physics phenomenon and she will tell you all about that. So, over to you Briana.
[Image changes to show Yulia on the main screen listening, and then the image changes to show Briana on the main screen, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a dark blue screen with text: Fundamental Sensor Research, Dr Briana Ganly]
Briana Ganly: Thank you Yulia. I’ll just share my slides. Hopefully that’s all good. I’m sure someone will tell me if it’s not. And so yeah. Thanks for the introduction Yulia. My name is Briana, and I have the exciting role of being the Sensor Team Lead in the Autonomous Future Science Platform. I’m talking to you today from the traditional lands of the Kaurna people here at the Waite Campus, and would also like to recognise the Traditional Custodians of the land and pay my respect to their Elders, past and present.
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So, first of all I’d just like to give a bit of an introduction to the thought process we had when designing this FSP to have a large focus on developing new sensors. Australia relies on sensors to connect the physical world to digital systems and many researchers listening in today will know all too well, if you do not have reliable sensors measuring useful quantities you will not have reliable digital models. Currently there are many quantities that we can not measure because the sensors do not exist yet and therefore digital models can only really improve to a certain point without new, useful, and reliable information.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a diagram explaining the six projects below the text headings: Scalable sensor networks, remote accountable in-situ and real-time sensors, Emerging sensor technologies]
We’ve already commenced six key projects in the Sensor Team to try and tackle the challenge of measuring the unmeasurable across a range of application areas important to Australia. As Yulia mentioned earlier, our FSP has identified some key Horizon 3 science areas which we asked our projects to focus on, and we’ve been able to link up this project space on the overlap within the key science areas. I’ll talk to the six different projects in more detail in the following slide, but here I just wanted to highlight that in the Sensor area we have projects covering the topics of scaleable sensor networks, remote accountable in-situ and real-time sensors, as well as emerging sensor technology developments.
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During the first round call for projects we also paid very close attention to choosing projects that were cohesive together. We found we had many projects that overlapped with their specific technology development. For example, we have four projects with novel hyper sensing development, hyperspectral sensing developments, and three projects with novel x-ray sensing developments. We also have a lot of overlap in domain areas as well where technologies can work together and complement each other to solve big industry projects.
Key areas of domain overlap are for environmental monitoring, minerals, and agricultural applications. We made sure that projects with overlapping application areas are complementary with each other. For example for two of our projects in the minerals area, they are both developing sensors that can be used for characterisation of bulk samples but the two sensors are measuring different characteristics – such as different elements and minerals in the ore – where the separate elemental and mineral information from each sensor can be combined for more efficient processing of ore.
[Image changes to show a photo of Maryam Yazdani in the top left and a photo of a view through a microscope lens appears on the right and text appears: Extending the Limit of X-ray Technologies, Detection of Biosecurity Threats in Agricultural Produce, Agriculture produce can contain biosecurity threats, Industry standard is currently manual inspection, This project ultimately aims to use novel x-ray CT imaging technology to automate the detection of pests in consignments of fruit, Contact – Maryam.Yazdani@csiro.au]
Now, I’ll go through the six projects that we have funded briefly. So, the first project is called “Extending the Limit of X-ray Technologies, Detection of Biosecurity Threats in Agricultural Produce”. So, this is led by Maryam Yazdani from Health and Bio Business Unit. Currently Australia is very limited with the export markets it can send fruit to due to the possibilities that the fruit could have infestations and pests such as fruit flies. Currently to determine whether fruit is infested with pests – especially at borders or other biosecurity checkpoints – a number of pieces of fruit are removed from a large consignment and they are manually inspected by a person who just cuts the fruit up and looks for the pests. So, there’s obviously large room for error here. Only a small number of pieces of fruit can be manually inspected out of a large consignment as it’s just some person at the border doing it.
So, the project is going to try and develop a more accurate way that we can tackle this problem. We want to look at novel methods of x-ray CT imaging to do quick scans and identify if there are any fruit flies inside the fruit without a person having to manually intervene. The end goal of the project would be that you could scan large boxes of fruit going through a conveyer belt and try and detect if there’s any pest infestations. The project also connects in with the Trusted Agrifoods Exports Mission, with the collaborative aim of gaining improved market access for Australian fruit, as well as increasing the trust and the quality of Australian fruit.
[Image changes to show a photo of Stephen Gensemer in the top left, and a photo of a pseudosatellite orbiting above earth appears on the right, and text appears: High altitude remote sensing for agricultural applications, Current remote sensing data have poor revisit frequency and spatial resolution, A new type of high-altitude platform, high altitude pseudosatellites (HAPS), can remain in the stratosphere over many months and capture high resolution imagery in real time, Contact – Stephen.Gensemer@csiro.au]
Our second project is led by Stephen Gensemer in the Manufacturing Business Unit, and is looking at high altitude remote sensing for agricultural applications. So, currently remote sensing is done with hyperspectral cameras on satellites around 300km above the Earth’s surface, and the spatial and spectral resolution of these cameras is really essentially just limited by the size of the satellite and the budget of the projects. And the other issue is the revisit time can be influenced by the orbit of the satellite which can be anywhere from a few hours to many days, like eight days, or 14 days. This project is going to look at an alternative platform for remote sensing. So, rather than using satellites, they’re going to be using high-altitude pseudo satellites. And Stephen and his post-doc are going to look at building a custom imaging system to capture high resolution, hyperspectral images of crop regions.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of Tim Malthus in the top left, and a photo of networking lines linking over the Earth’s surface appear on the right, and text appears: Low-cost optical sensors for water quality IoT networks, Developing cost-effective, low maintenance sensors for in-situ, real-time monitoring of turbidity and nitrates in Australia waterways, Contact Tim.Malthus@csiro.au]
Our third project is being led by Tim Malthus from Oceans and Atmospheres and is looking at a low cost optical sensors for water quality Internet of Things networks. So, this project was curated alongside the in-development CSIRO Aquawatch Mission, where they identified that there is a need to develop new ground based sensors to monitor the quality of Australia’s rivers, and coastal and inland waterways. There are currently a lot of water quality parameters that are difficult to measure accurately and reliably with in-situ sensors. So, this project will look at making new developments in optical absorption sensors to track some of these currently unmeasurable water parameters.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of Richard Yong in the top left, and a picture of networking lines and dots on the right, and text appears: Non-linear electromagnetics for real-time materials detection, Magnetic resonance has been successfully used to measure select minerals in bulk ore for ore sorting, Expanding the amount of minerals that can be measured using non-linear radio frequency responses from different minerals, Contact – Richard.Yong@csiro.au]
Our fourth project is led by Richard Yong from Mineral Resources looking at non-linear electromagnetics for real-time materials detection. So, in this case I can reflect that CSIRO has recently developed magnetic resonance methods for detecting the mineral content in bulk ore. And this technique has been really successful for certain minerals and it’s been spun out into an exciting start-up. However, there’s still a lot of minerals that can’t be measured and this is because they don’t have a strong response to the radio waves used to excite the sample. So, this project is going to instead look at measuring an alternative radio response from different materials, that is non-linear from the radio waves that are being input into the sample. So therefore they could potentially be easier to measure for certain minerals.
[Image changes to show a photo of Nina Welti in the top left, and a diagram explaining scanning throughout the process of paddock to the consumer, and text heading and text appears: Sensor development for quantification and prediction of provenance attributes of agricultural products. Origin, Processing, Consumer, Measure environmental indicator elements, Measure biological signatures, Verify provenance, Contact – Nina.Welti@csiro.au]
Our fifth project is led by Nina Welti in the Agriculture and Food Business Unit and is looking at sensor development for quantification and prediction of provenance attributes of agricultural products. So, this project also heavily overlaps with the trusted Agrifood Exports Mission. The background to this project is that currently the main ways to measure food provenance indicators – such as isotype ratios – are restricted to time consuming, and expensive laboratory experiments, which makes it very difficult to verify the provenance of food products in processing plants or produce markets. So, the project is going to look at a variety of portable in-situ and real-time sensors that can measure quantities that can be related back to the provenance of the product. So, essentially you’re trying to take the really big, unmoveable sensors at a lab, and how can we do a development that would allow us to quantify the same things out in the field.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of Briana on the top left, and a diagram of a conveyer belt moving ore with an x-ray tube above and text appears: X-ray scattering, Sensing the x-ray scattering interactions through the ore is used to determine elemental content and control ore diverter, Contact – Brianna.Ganly@csiro.au]
The last project in the Sensor theme is led by myself in the Mineral Resources Business Unit, where we’re building a sensor to attempt to measure the elemental composition of bulk ore samples. So, in the minerals industry, there are a few sensors that can measure bulk samples but not a lot. So, what essentially the problem is, most sensors are just going to measure the surface of the ore and in the minerals industry you’re taking tonnes of ore out of the ground every hour. You can’t… so you’re not looking at small samples, you’re looking at really large samples. And if you’re looking at a tonne of ore and you’re only measuring the elemental composition on the surface of that tonne of ore, you’re probably actually going to be measuring less than 1% of the material.
And ore is not homogenous. So, if you’re only measuring 1% of a mixed sample that’s not going to actually give you any information that you can use to basis your processing off. Like, you don’t know what the elemental composition of the bulk ore is. And there’s just not many techniques that you can use to measure all the elemental composition in bulk ore. So, we’re going to be looking at high-energy x-rays because they can penetrate through the ore. And traditionally they only tell you the density of the sample but we’re going to be looking at some smaller interactions such as the scattering within the ore to try and determine some more characteristics about the elemental composition of the ore, so that this information can be passed on to the processing plant so they know whether the ore is worth processing or not because you’re going to waste a lot of money if you start processing ore that doesn’t actually have valuable metal content in it.
[Image changes to show the slide showing the split circle with fish in one side, and a river in the other]
So, that’s a wrap on my summary of the projects from the Sensor theme. And next I would like to introduce Dr Andreas Marouchas, who is a Principal Research Engineer, and the Group Leader in the Engineering and Technology Programme in the NCMI Business Unit. Andreas was also the lead for the Advanced Engineering Autonomy theme in the FSP.
[Image changes to show Briana on the main screen, and then the image changes to show a new slide showing text on a dark blue screen: Advanced Engineering for Autonomy, Andreas Marouchas]
Andreas Marouchas: Thanks Briana and everyone for joining us today. I’m really excited to have the opportunity to tell you a little bit about, a bit more about our FSP, and specifically about the Advanced Engineering for Autonomy theme. I’d also like to start by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the land on which I’m calling in, down in Hobart, the Muwinina people. So, I’d like to just get started.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a table and text heading and text appears: Trends in sensing/observing, Infrastructure – Monolithic – distributed, Sensing – Sigle-modal – Multi-modal, Planning – Deterministic – Probabilistic, Data – Raw data – Data products, Operations – Lead agency – Consortia]
Before we get into the projects, I actually wanted to provide a little bit of context into the thinking that we, we came up with to define the portfolio of the FSP. It was really exciting to engage with many of you through the EOI process in the last year and to see all of your ideas. And this gives you a little bit of a, a sense of the framework that we were using in selecting this tightly coupled set of projects. Over the last decade we’ve really observed some significant changes into how sensing and observing is done across a number of industries and use cases.
Now, I’ll go through those very briefly to give you a sense of the kinds of challenges that we’re looking to address in the Advanced Engineering theme. On the infrastructure and assets side we’ve seen an increased move from monolithic, expensive assets, to distributed models of procurement and distributed models of use and investment in observing fields. In sensing, we’ve seen a shift away from single modality sensors, and our increased focus on multi-modal sensor approaches where we’re measuring multiple parameters simultaneously. In our planning, we’ve gone from deterministic models to increasingly probabilistic and statistical approaches to, conducting/observing particularly in large complex environments. On the data side, we’ve seen shifts from raw data as output to data products, and increasing the level of obstruction that the users, and managers, and decision-makers are interacting with those data products. And from an operational perspective, as things get more complex, and as things get more multi-disciplinary, as our observing increases the demands, we’ve seen a strong shift away from lead agency approaches to observing and sensing to consortia and partnerships being a primary model for addressing some of that complexity. And it’s with these trends in our minds that we came up with, went through ELIs and looked at the future and came up with a set of projects that we feel will help drive solutions to many of these challenges.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing text: Autonomous Sensing Theme, Platforms – Increasingly autonomous, Sensors – increasingly integrated and platform optimised, Develop technologies to enable and enhance autonomy on sensors connected in platforms and networks]
In putting together the theme we looked at our early platforms, seeing that Sensing team is focussing on sensors, and focussing primarily on the autonomy part, how can we bring autonomy and increased levels of unsupervision, unsupervised operation to the operation, and how can we increasingly invest and increasingly enable integrated and optimised sensing in our platforms. And so, the model of our theme is to develop technologies to enable and enhance autonomy on sensors connected in platforms and networks.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a circular diagram explaining the projects and the areas they fit into under the text headings: Projects, Autonomous systems for marine observations, I0T robotic platforms, Underwater communications and mesh networking, Multi-sensor data fusion, Accelerating deployment of intelligent sensor platforms, Sensor network topology, Platforms for agriculture engineering]
With that in mind we’ve selected seven projects in this first round to invest, contributing to Horizon 3 science areas across all five of the domain outputs, and linking both to other missions and FSPs within CSIRO.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a diagram showing the projects fanning out from a central point and moving through the headings: Sensor, System, Platform, Network, Autonomous engineering]
Looking at the progression of platforms from a sensor level, through to system integration, through to platform integration, interaction as a network, our seven projects allow us to bridge the gap from sensors to networks through platforms. It’s also important to point out that these seven projects are highly tightly interconnected and interdependent on each other, and produce a cohesive family of capabilities and technologies. I’m going to briefly run through some highlights of the seven projects and look forward to your very enthusiastic questions and comments at the end of our session.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of Andrew Filisetti on the top right, and a cross-section marine diagram can be seen below showing an ASV on the surface and AUVs below the surface, and text appears: Autonomous systems for marine observation, Contact – Andrew.Filisetti@csiro.au]
Starting in the marine domain, we have a project looking at autonomous systems to support and enable marine observations. Autonomy is a key enabling technology to the future of marine observations. It allows us to address the fundamental challenges of localisation, persistence and scale associated with monitoring Australia’s marine domain both for Defence, biosecurity, marine monitoring, and, and for the blue economy. This project is really going to focus on developing new approaches, algorithms, and paradigms to help bring autonomous technology from a system level to a fleet level and enable multi-platform heterogenous networks of vehicles to corporately address our mission parameters.
[Image changes to show a photo of Andreas in the top left, and a diagram of wireless communication networks appear on the surface of the water, below the water, and from a building on the coast and text appears: Underwater communications and mesh networking, Underwater wireless communication networks, Will create scalable, self-healing micropower underwater mesh networks of intelligent sensors, Underwater sensor networks are typically physically large, have high power consumption, and limited battery life, Contact (Interim) – Andreas.Marouchos@csiro.au]
The next projects are on underwater communications and mesh networking. As you can appreciate, one of the big challenges – particularly in the marine domain and to some extent mining as well – is our ability to communicate in those Wi-Fi and satellite denied environments such as the sub-sea domain. And so this project will develop both methods, sensors, and network topologies to address multi-agent interactions in a sub-sea marine environment, and in environments where we also have high-latency and a low bandwidth. And we’re looking to improve, create frameworks to improve resiliency and robustness in this type of mixed use environment for marine applications that apply to other areas as well. I’m currently the interim leader for this project, but there will be a new leader appointed very soon.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of David Silvera on the top left, and a photo of an elderly female interacting with an electronic device on the right, and text appears: IoRT My Mate, Emotional support and companionship, Mobility, navigation and fall prevention, Medication management, Personal care, Entertainment, Contact – David.Silvera@csiro.au]
Thinking a bit more about networks of sensors we have a project that’s been run by David, which is going to look at new architectures for combining both fixed and mobile IoT sensors, and looking at the sensor network interactions in the IoT space. And the particular application in this case is for supporting aged and personal care. And we’re looking towards developing not only frameworks for these networks, but data workflows to manage and address how we combine sensors in a network format particularly with IoT.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of Neil Francis on the top left, and a diagram can be seen explaining multi-sensor data fusion, and text appears: Effective decisions under uncertainty in multi-sensor data fusion, Contact – Neil.Francis@csiro.au]
Thinking a bit about the networks and diversity of sensors available, there’s a lot of challenges associated in bringing those diverse data sets together and combining them with models of predictive systems. And so, Neil is running a project in which we look at fusing data from multiple sensor outputs and platforms, interacting those with model, model predictions, as well as managing uncertainty of outcomes, and helping provide decision-making frameworks, not only for human operators, and human intervention into networks, but also interacting with autonomous and AI operators as well.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of Reza Arablouei on the top right, and a diagram of the way sensor platforms can be deployed appears below, and text heading appears: Accelerating deployments of intelligent sensor platforms, Contact – Reza.Arablouei@csiro.au]
Thinking a bit more about AI, AI is increasingly being used at a platform level, and in the Cloud to help process and manage data. But there is an increasing need for us to bring AI into the network, platform and sensor level. And so, Reza is operating a, running a project to help develop algorithms and tools to bring AI into edge devices with a particular focus on the rapid deployment and retraining of devices in the field to allow for the adaptive use of the technology and in this particular application, we’ll be focusing on some agricultural management challenges in livestock.
[Image changes to show a photo of Andrew Tulloh in the top left, and a diagram explaining the use of LIDAR, Camera, and Lighting in a network design framework, and text heading and text appears: Sensor network design framework, Contact Andrew.Tulloh@csiro.au]
The next set of projects are being funded in sort of an exploratory phase, but we really think they’re well suited to perhaps grow into full project proposals in the coming year. The first one’s being run by Andrew, which is creating a set of tools to help us design frameworks for sensor networks. As you can imagine these networks of sensors can often be an amalgamation of very disparate technologies which often do not have common software control mechanisms and APIs. And so, the point, the purpose of this project is to help create a framework and a topology to improve and increase the speed at which we can design software frameworks to support the proliferation of sensor networks.
[Image changes to show a photo of Roger Lawes in the top left, and a diagram appears beneath showing ways the Agriculture Device Layer, the Edge Device Layer and the Cloud Layer integrate into agriculture engineering, and text heading and text appears: Platforms for agriculture engineering, Contact – Roger.Lawes@csiro.au]
And finally Roger is leading a project to help address some of the challenges in the agricultural industry with regards to processing. There is a big promise that AI and autonomy can help address some of the challenges and improve efficiencies in agricultural production. And so, we are assessing the opportunities to provide technologies in both the Cloud layered Edge device and also the platform layer to address and improve efficiencies in agricultural production. We’re still at the, at the scoping phase right now but there is a hope that we’ll find a particular niche where CSIRO’s technologies and capabilities can help address and progress the challenge in this area.
[Image changes to show Andreas on the main screen]
Thanks very much for your attention and I will now pass it now back to, to Yulia.
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen, and participants can be seen in the bar below]
Yulia Uvarova: Thank you very much Andreas.
[Image changes to show the slide showing the split circle with fish in one side, and a river in the other]
Yes, thanks Andreas and Briana for the updates on the themes that you lead, and project that we currently have in our portfolio.
[Image changes to show a new slide showing a photo of two people looking at a small chip and text appears: Opportunity – We will be looking for a Lead for the Sensor Prototyping Hub, Internal process in early 2022/2023 FY (Jobs Central)]
These are all very exciting projects and these projects as well as the new ones that we’re hoping to add to, to the portfolio will be underpinned by the Sensor Prototyping Hub. And I mentioned this initiative a few times already. So, we are now getting ready to launch the Sensor Prototyping Hub and we will be looking at recruiting a leader for the Hub to join our FSP Leadership Team. We will be looking for somebody with engineering skills, who is willing and ready to look after their research activities in the Hub, look after our early career engineers that we will employ, develop a project portfolio, and look for opportunities to partner with the university sector, government organisations, and industry to accelerate Horizon 3 research from the lab to prototype to field trials.
So, if you’re interested, please follow the updates on Jobs Central, and we’re hoping to start advertising this role in early 2022/23 financial year. Thank you very much for, for the attention. And I will pass it back to Chris now.
[Image changes to show Chris on the main screen talking to the camera, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Thank you very much Yulia. There have been a number of questions coming through for you. So, if you’re thinking you’re going to put your seat back and relax now, or the feet up and relax, I’m not sure what putting your feet back actually means, it sounds painful. It’s an advanced yoga position. But the questions we have aren’t anywhere near that difficult I don’t think but you’ll be the judge of that. Yulia, quick question for you that I’ll paraphrase because it came in a couple of different forms. How do we pitch project for this FSP, or are the projects already fixed? Is it too late?
[Image changes to show Yulia talking to the camera on the main screen, and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom of the screen]
Yulia Uvarova: It’s never too late. Yes, we do have a fixed portfolio of those 13 projects that Briana and Andreas talked about. These were pitched during the first call for proposals that, that was put out there back in September 2021. But we will be announcing another round for these EOIs associated with the launch of the Sensor Prototyping Hub. So, we will make sure that this announcement goes across CSIRO and all the business units. And we will also be posting some information about that on our research website that is now live. So, stay tuned, follow us on the website, and you will hear from us very soon.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Thank you very much and that was actually another question that came up. Somebody was asking for, in particular for someone outside of CSIRO, how do you stay in touch with the research and I don’t know whether they mean the FSP research or just CSIRO’s research in general. But just a note that that website that you were referring to that’s the research.csiro.au/autonomoussensors one?
Yulia Uvarova: Mm.
Chris Krishna-Pillay: OK, research.csiro.au/autonomoussensor. I think I got that right but if you go on the CSIRO website and search for autonomous sensors you’ll find something he said with evidence free confidence. A question for you Briana. This comes from one of our simpler participants – and by that I mean me – you referred to a pseudo satellite at one point. What is a pseudo satellite?
[Image changes to show Briana talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Briana Ganly: So, there’s multiple options there but one of the areas that they’re looking at is high altitude balloon.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: OK, OK. So, not actually orbiting per se?
[Image changes to show Briana talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Briana Ganly: No, no. Yeah, but up in that… there’s a lot of debate actually about where does Space really start so do you have to be 100km up to be in Space, can you be in 30km. Like there’s actually a lot of benefits being closer to the ground but, you know, you’ve got to find that sweet spot where you’re not going to be hit by a plane. And, you know, it’s really hard to get into Space because you have to be launched, you know, with rocket fuel. So, sort of that in between.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: I feel like you’ve lowered the bar if Earth’s sweet spot is where you’re not hit by a plane. But I agree with you, I hundred percent agree. Interesting, very interesting indeed. Because yeah you mentioned it, and I immediately went, oh what does that mean, because you’re either up there or you’re not. But as you’ve just pointed out you can also be neither. Thank you. Yulia a question for you about FSPs more broadly I suppose. And I quote, “Does the Autonomous Sensor FSP have any kind of relationship – still a quote – with the Collaborative Intelligence FSP?”.
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: We, we don’t have a formalised relationship but I certainly had many discussions – not only with SINTEL FSP but other FSPs as well – where we tried to identify perhaps overlaps or synergies and where we can form or develop close FSP projects because that can be very beneficial. So, these discussions are ongoing with a number of FSPs.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Sure thank you. I think, Andreas was it you that mentioned the Sensor Prototyping Hub, or was that somebody else?
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: I think we all mentioned it.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Oh you all mentioned it, right, over and over again. Well, in that case first in best dressed then, because the question is simply this. Well, there’s two parts to this. I’ll give you the first part first, and then I’ll give you the second part second. The first part is this, “Where will the Sensor Prototyping Hub, where will it be located, where will this Hub be?”. Anyone.
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: Yes, so that’s the model that we, we have been developing in the last few months. The Hub will actually be in sort of a virtual, a virtual thing but we will leverage on existing laboratories and capabilities that we have across all sites in CSIRO. We did some, a high-level capability mapping across various sites, and business units, and we also would like to position our early career engineers, co-locate them within the sites where we have critical mass of activities within the FSP, if that makes sense. So, for example, if we have three major projects in one, at one site in one city in Australia it makes sense to at least co-locate one of the early career engineers with that critical mass in the FSP.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Yes, it does. OK. OK. The other question was more an observation I suppose than a question and it’s actually probably something that you need not answer per se, but it was simply someone making the, recognising that there’s probably a connection to be made between that Hub and the future, the Laboratories of the Future Programme, which is something that Professor Fox’s team are looking into. So, I think that, I don’t know whether you need to answer that, but the way you’re describing that Hub, and the act of having a Hub at all I think, especially in this area is something that does seem to sit nicely inside the Laboratories of the Future consideration. So, I’ll leave that there as a comment/question.
But a note of course to anybody who’s watching this call, what has happened here is each of our presenters today has put their name out there, so now you can find them. Please don’t stalk them because that just uses up time, it’s exhausting and kind of confronting. But you know who they are so if you do have a question that you want to throw at them like that which may not occur to you now you know where they are.
Before we go though I think there are more questions there. I don’t know where to put this one. I’m going to start with Andreas because he’s been quiet for too long but then you can throw it somebody else and go where you like. Is there any interest in sensors that detect pollutant chemicals in-situ in soil such as, you know, PFAS or petroleum fuels etc, which are very widespread contaminants especially in some areas, is there any interest in trying to detect those and how that might be done better?
[Image changes to show Andreas talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Andreas Marouchos: Sure, I think we’re open to a whole range of problems across the domain areas, and if there’s a critical mass there I think that’s something that we could be looking at, sure.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Sounds like a yes. I don’t know whether you’ve dobbed yourself in or everybody. That’s great. OK, cool. There was also a, now where was it, there was another question somewhere, I won’t go to it but there was a question relating to that, a different question but a similar kind of idea actually. Although there are quite a number of questions here though. Oh well, here’s one that might be interested, somewhat related. Will the FSP move towards autonomous decision-making in environmental assessment by linking, you know, sensor networks to other integrated platforms etc, yeah so basically producing what would otherwise be an environmental digital twin? Is that too ambitious?
[Image changes to show Andreas talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Andreas Marouchos: I think that’s where, I think that’s where a lot of the research is headed, particularly coupling, you know our work at the platform and network level with the work that Neil is going to be doing in helping integrate our understanding from environmental models into how we make the observations and feeding that loop back to decision-makers. I think there’s lots of opportunities for us to have a more nuanced approach to how we do, how we do observations, again a less deterministic approach, and a more statistical approach or probabilistic approach where we look, we look to observe in areas of interest, or on areas that can drive impact in decision-making in particular and not necessarily through more simple, simple approaches that are currently being used. So, perhaps in future yes that’s something that we could consider, yeah.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Cool. OK, thank you. This question, I don’t know where to put this one either. Who would like to talk, well OK, I was going to say Agriculture and Food, but it may not be Agriculture, this may be a Manufacturing question, or neither or both. Is anyone’s hand going up to grab this before I ask this. Anyone, anyone? OK, I’m going to pick a person in a moment. Here’s the question. You don’t get to sit there by the way and not answer this. It’s a matter of who the lucky person is.
By the way I should note that the person asking this question has prefaced it with, “Thanks for the very exciting initiative”. OK, so now you feel guilty if you don’t answer the question because they like what you did. “Plants need to adjust to ever changing environmental conditions in order to survive. Plants are good at that – I think that’s a reasonable assertion – there have been attempts of very, to using different kinds of materials for example nano materials of various sorts to sense metabolic status and trigger responses, are there any ideas around using actual plants as sensors?”. Is there, you know there’s capability when you think about our Manufacturing group, our Data61 group, our Ag and Food group, I would suggest possibly our Land and Water group, there are people that know about how this stuff works, the question is, have you guys considered using plants either as sensors, or I might add, as an inspiration for sensors? I’m going to go, OK, let’s go Andreas first because he stroked his beard with intent, and then I’m going to hurl the same question at Briana just because I feel like it.
[Image changes to show Andreas talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Andreas Marouchos: Chris, your enthusiasm is infectious. Yes, biological sensors and/or proxies is a very interesting idea and, you know, I’ll just reflect on the fact that we’ve got all these devices on water, really great ideas coming from CSIRO, and I encourage everyone to keep sending them to us. The sort of primary question for me is do we have, a, do we have the capability and the research interest in CSIRO to answer this specific type of question. And is there an opportunity for us to use that to drive impact, and I don’t know enough about the field off hand per se but I think that’s a very interesting and creative suggestion and I’d love to see more like that. I don’t know Bri if you have, if you have other thoughts.
[Image changes to show Briana talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Briana Ganly: Yeah. So, when we actually set this FSP up we did have to do a bit of an in depth scoping study into where the FSP’s boundaries were set because one of the most challenging thing about sensors is everything is a sensor.
So, where do you draw the line and say, these are the sensors we are going to be looking at. And in consultation with some of the other FSPs, so especially the Environomics FSP, we sort of had a bit of a agreement that perhaps we wouldn’t go too far into the biological space because there is an Environomics FSP, but then there’s the finer details of what they’re actually looking at with their sensors which I’m not in the right place to talk to. And so, there’s actually these areas that sort of do sit in between the FSPs and we would definitely really welcome in the future for a collaborative project between two FSPs. So, ones that do use more plant and biological based sensors, combined in with more experts from that area, as currently our expert team is definitely sitting more in the physical and chemical sensor side of things. So, we’re very open to those opportunities if someone was to come to us with a really great project idea and it’s something we were all interested in doing collaboratively. But for our FSP on our own, we sort of thought, at our current initial state we more have, more physical sensor projects.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Cool thank you. Oh hey while you’re there, this just to hand. Would drone based sensors be possible for scanning live or hard to reach areas?
[Image changes to show Briana talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Briana Ganly: Yeah, that’s a really exciting area that we’re very interested in. So, some EOIs came in with that kind of, those kind of ideas, and like I said there was just too many to fund. But what we’re really focused on, is we’re developing these new sensors that don’t exist yet, so in my theme at least, we’re just more focussed on getting the sensor up and running and working. And then we’re actually doing a domain agnostic sort of approach to developing these sensors. While they do sit in homes, or domain areas, we’re hoping to develop the technology so that then it can be applied to multiple domains and some of these sensors will have opportunities especially a lot of the hyperspectral sensing developments where you would then, once you’ve got the sensor working you can put it on a drone, you can put underwater, you can put it in all different areas and try and see how much information and value you can gain from this development, and drones are definitely an exciting opportunity for that.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Nice. Thank you very much. Yulia, a question for you with your FSP Director’s hat on but also your Mineral Resources hat on, and I say that because the question has specifically asked for someone in Mineral Resources and you qualify as both being in Mineral Resources and being someone, the question is this, “Will you also be looking at investigating the use of magnetic sensors along with [54.05], so magnetic sensing”.
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: I think absolutely. Briana mentioned in her presentation that we’re looking at developing new sensors regardless of the physics phenomena that, you know, as a sensor, the future sensor is based on, and if they can complement each other, fantastic. That’s a win-win.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: OK, OK, and what are you saying, this is purely and simply for me by the way. And this is going to sound silly, “How new are you prepared to get?” I mean, there’s, there’s a new way of doing something that’s built on the old way. There’s a new way of doing something that people are already doing. And then there’s new, no one’s ever thought of doing this before. Are you pushing that boundary around the actual nature of what you sense, and how it’s sensed, or is it more a matter of how do you use the technology that we currently have better?
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: I really hope that we are actually pushing the boundaries in many activities that we undertake.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Cool. That’s very exciting indeed. OK, I’ve got time for, I’ve probably got one more question I could toss into the mix before we’re totally out of time. Where am I going to put this? I don’t know where I’m going to put it. I’m going to put it at Yulia because in where I’m sitting right now you’re the biggest person on the screen. It’s like [55.23] know the answer so I’m just going to go there. Is there any scope to apply these technologies to animal welfare? And the question continues, from what I have heard there is significant ability to apply machine based learning and develop algorithms that can track and predict animal health and welfare, for example in feedlots and dairy sheds, and as well in some laboratory experiments. So could we use sensors, that is autonomous sensors to track animal welfare?
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: I’m sure we can and I think we have quite a few projects that will be using agriculture case studies to, to test the ideas and technologies that they are developing. So, yes stay tuned. I think, Andreas has a project in his theme that will be looking at a similar thing that you just asked, working on the livestock case study.
[Image changes to show Chris talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Chris Krishna-Pillay: Excellent. So, just to jump on that for a second. To what extent to do you expect the FSP – no pressure by the way, I’m not going to come back in two years and demand that you tick these things off your list – but just to what extent do you think the sensor technology, the sensor networks you’re talking about, at what point do they start predicting? Is that, is that not in your scope, or is just not a thing? I mean if you’ve sent enough information, at some point you start to see patterns hopefully. So, is it, is it, part of the programme brief to be looking at prediction?
[Image changes to show Yulia talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Yulia Uvarova: Andreas would you like to take on that one?
[Image changes to show Andreas talking on the main screen and participants can be seen in the bar at the bottom]
Andreas Marouchous: Our focus right now is really on the observing and data collection side and the pipeline associated with that but we do have a project being run by Neil in WA, and that is really focused on how do we translate that large and diverse set of data streams into decision-making, you know, coupled perhaps with some modelling, and some physics and some understanding of how the world is working to help inform decision-making, with a human in the loop but also how does a human then increase their level of abstraction with how they interact with both the data and instructions to the systems. And that gets augmented with AI all the time. So, the answer is yes we are interested in that area, particularly around our ability to improve the fidelity of an observation through, that continuous feedback loop of modelling, observation modelling, you know assessment in decision.
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Chris Krishna-Pillay: Cool. That’s great. Thank you very much. Now we are pretty much out of time so I’m certainly not going to try and shoehorn one more question in there and put more pressure on people. So, if you have asked a question and you didn’t get an answer, don’t take it personally, there were a lot of them and time waits for no webcast. But I guess you know who these people are and they’re busy and can be hard to find at times but they do like talking to you. That’s the truth. So, you can have a crack at finding them especially if you’ve got either these questions that haven’t got answered or if you have brand new ones coming your way that you’d like, and you’re, you know at 3am and you want to throw them past somebody, you know who these people are.
The one more thing I’ll quickly mention is please do go to the website if you haven’t already gone there if you have moments of genius or questions along the way, research.csiro.au/autonomoussensors is the place to go. And that’s where most of the information is housed now but it will be updated obviously as the programme develops over the coming months and years. But we are practically out of time so let me now just quickly thank Yulia, Bronwyn, Briana, Andreas, for your time today, and everybody else for your time joining us, as well for your questions, and for you comments in the Chat. Thank you so much. We’re looking forward to seeing where this FSP takes us. But for now I’ll say goodbye. We’ll see you soon.
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