Honours and Masters project

Deep learning has achieved ground-breaking performance in many 2D vision tasks in the recent years. With more and more 3D data available such as those captured by Lidar, the next research trend is doing advanced perception on 3D data. The objective of this project is to study the state-of-the-art object detection techniques for 3D point clouds such as PointNet and PointVoxel.

Modern machine learning is increasingly applied to create amazing new technologies and user experiences, many of which involve training machines to learn responsibly from sensitive data, such as personal photos or email. Ideally, the parameters of trained machine-learning models should encode general patterns rather than facts about specific training examples.

It is quite challenging to access to videos for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV), particularly creating audio descriptions that describe the scenes without interfering the dialogues in a video. There is also the challenge of providing additional information using multi-modal feedback, that is using non-speech audio and haptics.

Haptic ring is a wearable device that is used by people who are blind or have low vision. It provides electro-vibration feedback on different locations of users' fingers. Its primary use is to extend the user interaction with touch screens in which haptic feedback is restricted due to battery consumptions. 

In this project you will work on improving the haptic ring by investigating design improvements that will allow the device to provide more accurate feedback. We will provide support for the design and programming components of the project.

People who are blind or have low vision (BLV) access documents using screen readers such as JAWS and NVDA. These screen readers emulates a cursor moving around the screen using arrow keys or various shortcut combinations. However, this way of interaction is vey slow and not ideal for getting an overview of a document and navigating to relevant sections.

Since the 1990s, researchers have known that commonly-used public-key cryptosystems (such as RSA and Diffie-Hellman systems) could be potentially broken using efficient algorithms running on a special type of computer based on the principles of quantum mechanics, known as a quantum computer. Due to significant recent advances in quantum computing technology, this threat may become a practical reality in the coming years. To mitigate against this threat, new `post-quantum’ (a.k.a.

In this project you will work on creating a 3D printed platform used with an iPad for people who are blind or have low vision. The platform will allow people to program in the Scratch visual programming language (https://scratch.mit.edu/) using 3D printed blocks. You will program Arduino boards, print models using 3D printers, and integrate these models with an iPad.

Accessing maps is a very challenging task for people with vision impairment. Particularly, navigating a map using panning and zooming and finding information on the screen. 

In this project, you will work on understanding the important sections of a map, and finding the best ways to convey these information to people who are blind or have low vision. To do this, you will use Eye Tracking devices to track sighted people and determine the focused areas on a map. Then, you will use this knowledge to generate accessible maps for blind people.

People who are blind need to touch surfaces and materials to get information. These surfaces can be a Braille paper that has Braille text, a swell paper that has embossed shapes, and a button that is used to turn on and off a device like a TV or to open a train carriage door. Due to Covid-19, hygienic practices will be more and more important, and it will be very restrictive for people who are blind to touch surfaces in public places.

For Australians with impaired vision, accessible books are a lifeline to education and vital everyday information, and also to the independence and personal autonomy that sighted people take for granted. Yet much literature remains in an inaccessible format.