Robotics, Vision and Signal Processing (RVSP)

The Robotics, Vision and Signal Processing (RVSP) team aims to develop innovative concepts, methodologies and techniques in the field of robotics, computer vision and signal processing and apply these developments to solving practical problems.

Key People

Dr. Ju Jia (Jeffrey) Zou received a PhD degree in electrical and information engineering from the University of Sydney in 2001. Currently, he is a Senior Lecturer with the School of Computing, Engineering and Mathematics at Western Sydney University. He was a Research Associate and then an Australian Postdoctoral Fellow with the School of Electrical and Information Engineering at the University of Sydney from 2000 to 2003. He has been a Chief Investigator for a number of projects funded by the Australian Research Council. His research interests include signal and image processing, pattern recognition, computer vision and their applications.

Dr. Gu Fang received his PhD degree in robotics from the University of Sydney in 1997. He is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Western Sydney University. His research interests are mainly in the areas of machine vision, optimisation and computational intelligence in robotic applications. He has published close to 80 papers in these areas. He has been a Chief Investigator for a number of research projects funded by ARC and other government bodies.

Dr. Qi Cheng received PhD degree from the University of Melbourne in 1995. He had been previously teaching at the Northern Territory University. He is now a Lecture at the Western Sydney University.  Dr. Qi Cheng is working on parameter estimation fro problems in telecommunications, radar processing and harmonic retrieval. He has developed algorithms and conducted performance analysis on frequency synchronization of OFDM systems, detection and estimation of DOAs using less sensors than targets and frequency estimation.
He has published over 40 technical papers, with around 10 (ERA A*/A ranked) journal papers. He is the co-editor of the book "High-Resolution and Robust Signal Processing" published by Marcel Dekker in 2003.

Competitive Research grants

• ARC (Australian Research Council) Linkage project 'A Vision Controlled Autonomous Multi-Robot Welding System' with total funding of $134K (Dr. G. Fang, Dr. J.J. Zou, et al.)
• ARC Linkage 'Geotechnical Characterisation of Compacted Ground Based on Passive Ambient Noise' with total funding of $324K (A/Prof. C.J. Leo, Dr. J.J. Zou, et al.)
  ARC Discovery project 'A Computer-Aided Cartooning System' with total funding of $218K (Dr. J.J. Zou)
• AusIndustry R&D Start Graduate Placement Grant – Vector Display System with total funding of $110K (Prof B Roberts, Dr G Fang, and Research Technology Pty Ltd).
• AusIndustry R&D Start Graduate Placement Grant – 24 Bit Optical Post Processor with total funding of $90K (Dr G Fang and Laservision Macro-Media Pty Ltd)

Higher Degree Research Students

• Hisham Darjazini (Graduated with a PhD degree in 2006)
  Thesis topic: Spoken Word Recognition Using Incremental Learning Based Neural Networks Principal Supervisor: Dr. Q. Cheng
• Paul Morrison (Graduated with a PhD degree in September 2011)
  Thesis topic: Shape Matching Based on Skeletonisation and Inexact Graph Matching Principal Supervisor: Dr. J.J. Zou
• Mitchell Dinham (PhD candidate)
  Thesis topic: Autonomous robotic welding using computer vision
  Principal Supervisor: Dr. G Fang
• Christopher Le Brese (PhD candidate)
  Thesis topic: Image Correspondence for Structural Health Monitoring
  Principal Supervisor: Dr. J.J. Zou
• Christopher Neil Young (PhD candidate)
  Thesis topic: Ambient Noise Analysis for Soil Structure Determination
  Principal Supervisor: Dr. J.J. Zou
• Gavin Smith (Master (Honours) candidate)
  Thesis topic: Vision based robotic automation
  Principal Supervisor: Dr. G Fang
• Laurence Pap (Master (Honours) candidate)
  Thesis topic: Sub-Pixel Object Detection for Structural Health Monitoring
  Principal Supervisor: Dr. J.J. Zou
• Andre Russell (Master (Honours) candidate)
  Thesis topic: Visual Information Processing for Structural Health Monitoring
  Principal Supervisor: Dr. J.J. Zou