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PROJECTS @ CTIE


Ctie is actively engaged with industry, government and user groups in driving innovation and marketability through leading edge research expertise in telecommunications.

Projects include:


TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK TESTBED

MOBILE IPv6

MESH NETWORKS

REAL TIME TRAFFIC GENERATOR

VIDEO OVER WIRELESS IP

STREAMING VIDEO SERVER

ANTENNA EFFECTS ON WIDEBAND INDOOR RADIO COMMUNICATIONS

MODELLING RADIO PROPAGATION IN BUSHFIRES

AIRCRAFT SIMULATOR DESIGN FOR AVIONICS EDUCATION

AEROBOTICS including:
Development of electronically steerable antennae to detect and follow unmanned air vehicles, and
Electromagnetic compatibility of flight control and communications links.

VISIONEERING THE FUTURE

JINDALEE OPERATIONAL RADAR NETWORK (JORN)

TASMAN INTERNATIONAL GEOSPACE ENVIRONMENT RADAR (TIGER)

IMPLEMENTATION OF WAVELET BASED OPTIMISED AND ADAPTIVE SPEECH ALGORITHM ON A DSP

DETECTION AND LOCALISATION OF SUPERIOR OLIVE PATHOLOGIES FROM AUDITORY BRAINSTEM RESPONSE (ABR) RECORDINGS

STATISTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING ON A DSP


Past Projects:


AUSTRALIAN AUTOMOTIVE NETWORK EXCHANGE

DIGITAL DOCKLANDS

DIGITAL MEDIA LIBRARY and VIDEO ON DEMAND


AEROBOTICS

Contact : Professor Greg Egan

URL: http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/hargrave/aerobotics.html

This website deals with communications technologies for autonomous robotic aircraft systems.

In 2000 an R&D agreement was established between Monash University and Aerosonde Robotic Aircraft to develop such systems for air to ground telepresence operations and robot to robot 'cluster' intelligence.

URL: http://www.aerosonde.com


VISIONEERING THE FUTURE

Contact : Dr Russell Naughton

URL: http://www.ctie.monash.edu.au/visioneering_the_future

This website contains an archive of media reports regarding the implementation of digital television into Australia. This also encompasses HDTV and interactive H/DTV

The archive, in place since 1999, is updated approximately once per week and features links to stories reported in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and The Australian Financial Review.

The site contains a link to the ABC's Video on Demand News Service, links to world media on DTV and a series of essays and discussions on DTV.

The website also contains a similar, though smaller archive on developments in the introduction of ADSL and WAP. These technologies have not been as widely reported in the `common' press and as such the volume of content is not as high as with the DTV pages.

It is expected that ADSL and WAP will become more discussed in these outlets as the technologies reach further into everyday life.


JINDALEE OPERATIONAL RADAR NETWORK (JORN)

Contact : Dr John Bennett

A major current project is concerned with development of improved techniques of target location for use in the Jindalee Operational Radar Network (JORN). The development of the JORN system, which has been described as the "cornerstone of [Australia's] national defence" (Australian, 9/4/96) is a major national project.


TASMAN INTERNATIONAL GEOSPACE ENVIRONMENT RADAR (TIGER)

Contact : Dr John Bennett

The building and operation of the recently-funded Tasman International Geospace Environment Radar (TIGER) for geospace research is a collaborative project involving Australian scientists and the British Antarctic Survey. TIGER will operate both as a stand-alone radar and as a component of the international SuperDARN network to investigate the interaction between the solar wind and the earth's atmosphere. TIGER also has links to Norway and Sweden.

This project is being conducted in collaboration with La Trobe University, University of Newcastle, Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), British Antarctic Survey, Antarctic Division and RLM Systems.

The presence of ionisation, and particularly free electrons, in the ionosphere and magnetosphere has a profound effect on radio waves propagating through the region. Lower frequencies in the HF band may be reflected by the ionosphere. This makes possible cheap long distance communication to remote locations. It also makes possible Over-The-Horizon Radar (OTHR).


IMPLEMENTATION OF WAVELET BASED OPTIMISED AND ADAPTIVE SPEECH ALGORITHM ON A DSP

Contact : Mr Brian Lithgow

Overview:

The project is the implementation of a novel dual-adaptive approach to the design of the digital signal processing (DSP) algorithms for speech processing in a hearing aid. The majority of existing algorithms are non-adaptive, although some recent work has considered fast adaptation of filter parameters. Improving the fast adaptation routine and combining it with an independent, optimisation based, on-line channel identification has the potential to significantly improve qualitative performance of hearing aids. These techniques will be used in the implementation of the dual-adaptive DSP architecture proposed for the hearing aid

It is hoped that the research momentum generated by the present project may be used in future as a basis to obtain further research grants and lead to industrial collaboration

Statement of Problem:

The use of wavelet techniques in speech signal processing is common place. Techniques that can selectively choose a best wavelet basis for speech representation often incorporate some form of artificial intelligence or to a lesser extent adaptive algorithms. For digital hearing aids and cochlear implants a limited number (e.g. 11) of bands/electrode pairs are used (eg. Cochlear, Siemens MUSCIC). The selection of the frequencies represented by these bands/electrode pairs is mostly done a priori

The proposed algorithm will be tested to adaptively vary these bands or electrode pair representations i.e. vary the scales of the initial best wavelet basis. This enables the clear and separate representation and presentation of two close formant frequencies that would in previous strategies be located within the same band, across the edges of neighbouring bands or dynamically traversing the edges of pairs of bands to be represented by separate bands or electrode pairs. The initial limitations of 11 bands and defined bounds for each band based on formant spread data indicate the proposed application could be implemented in "real time" aboard a DSP such as the TMS320C6201/6701

Benefits from the proposed approach are likely to be better speaker recognition, noise reduction and qualitative improvement in hearing aid performance in difficult situations such as encountered with the 'cocktail effect'


DETECTION AND LOCALISATION OF SUPERIOR OLIVE PATHOLOGIES FROM AUDITORY BRAINSTEM RESPONSE (ABR) RECORDINGS

Contact : Mr Brian Lithgow

Auditory Brainstem Response (ABR) recordings can detect and sometimes localise pathological interruptions to the Auditory Pathway. To date no surface recording method (eg. ABR) has been able to detect and localise conductive interruptions within the midbrain Superior Olive nuclei. Preliminary studies, using wavelet analysis of a high sample rate click evoked ABR recording, indicate the possibility of localising sections of the ABR response to the Superior Olive

This wavelet study, by using phase characteristics of the response, aims to use tone pip stimuli to localise ABR responses to individual nuclei of the Superior Olive, and, extend this localisation to individual laminae within each nuclei.

This technique is widely applicable to General Practitioners as a screening test for detection and localisation of auditory pathway conduction dysfunction. The stimulus recording system is mostly implemented on a TMS320C6201 EVM card using the Code composer studio software.

ABR recordings of 30+ subjects will be required to create a healthy template for future characterisation of unhealthy pathologies. Project completion and testing is being conducted under the supervision of Mr Brian Lithgow. Students of both Pathology and Engineering background are conducting this project

Commercial Value:

It is anticipated that General Practitioners could use this PC based system for auditory screening


STATISTICAL SIGNAL PROCESSING ON A DSP

Contact : Mr Brian Lithgow

Overview:

Kurtosis and skew are measures often applied to assist in blind separation and speaker separation. This project aims to use these measures in the time and spectral domain on isolated speech components for potential use in speaker separation and identification.

Statement of Problem:

Two of the biggest problems are:

1. detection of articulation

2. detection of voiced/unvoiced segments.

Our early studies suggest statistical measures may be of significant benefit in this detection process. Experiments to validate this hypothesis are required. These techniques could be used in a hearing aid. Benefits from the proposed approach are likely to be better speaker recognition, noise reduction and qualitative improvement in hearing aid performance in difficult situations such as encountered with the 'cocktail effect'.


Past Projects on this page:

AUSTRALIAN AUTOMOTIVE NETWORK EXCHANGE

Contact : (no longer with the dept: Ms Sonja Ahrens, Dr Richard Nelson)

URL : http://www.aanx.com.au/

The Centre for Telecommunications and Information Engineering has been advising AANX Operations within the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries on technical aspects relating to the networking of automotive manufacturers, suppliers, and related industries. The CTIE team provided testing as technical overseer during the pilot phase of this project for a private e-commerce network. The network is now fully operational and contributes significant savings in telecommunications charges to its users.

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