• Two Charles Sturt academics have secured a share in $5 million to fund research into driverless cars
• The funding is from an international grant based in Japan, supporting seven teams’ collaborative research across six countries
• The project will research sensing, actuation, communication and mobile intelligence infrastructure for ambient intelligence

Charles Sturt University researchers have secured $500,000 in funding from Japan for a specialised project as part of an international team of leading scientists.

Professor in Computer Science in the Charles Sturt School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering Manoranjan Paul (Pictured, left) will lead the research as principal investigator, alongside Course Coordinator for the Doctor of Information Technology and Senior Lecturer in Computing in the Charles Sturt School of Computing, Mathematics and Engineering Dr Quazi Mamun as the co-investigator.

Professor Paul and Dr Mamun form a collaborative group of researchers from six different countries, each forming their own team from Australia, Japan, the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Canada and Norway.

The Australian team will develop a cutting-edge mechanism for driverless cars to be able to detect objects in challenging situations, such as heavy rain or fog.

“These conditions can severely hinder the ability of driverless cars or semi-assisted vehicles to accurately identify objects on the road, posing significant safety risks,” Professor Paul said.

“We will leverage advanced artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and sensor fusion techniques to tackle this challenge.

“Our system will combine data from various sensors, such as cameras, Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) and radar to create a robust perception model that can handle diverse environmental conditions.

“Once this mechanism successfully identifies hazardous objects, such as pedestrians or obstacles, we will integrate it with vehicle driver assistance systems for real-time warnings and alerts to the driver.”

Charles Sturt is sharing in a total of $5 million through the ASPIRE for Top Scientists grant, contributing to the overarching project titled, ‘Research on Sensing, Actuation, Communication, and Mobile Intelligence Infrastructure for Ambient Intelligence’.

Professor Paul said the collaborative research is expected to develop ambient intelligence, which will help advance society to live safely and securely.

“This research and funding will also help to foster young researchers by sending them abroad for long periods of time, inviting young researchers from abroad, and holding international joint workshops to promote brain circulation,” he said.

“The result is even more opportunities for world-leading research in the future.”

The funding will support the project over five years from February 2024 to February 2029.

ENDS