Part IV Project Management System

#1: A Model In-Motion Charging System

Unallocated

In-motion charging of electric vehicles (EV) using inductive power transfer (IPT) has become a main stream research topic in recent times. The goal of this project is to design and develop a scaled down in-motion charging system to showcase the applications of this technology. During the first stage of the project, the students are expected to design and develop the ... Read more

No Category

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#2: A Compact Charger with PFC for FSAE Electric Car

Unallocated

UoA FSAE team requires a charger suitable to recharge their electric cars. The input to the charger is typically derived from single/three phase utility grid and is required to charge a 550 V 15 Ah battery pack within 3 hours. The charger should incorporate power factor correction (PFC) and electrical isolation between input and output for safety. It should also ... Read more

No Category

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#3: Analysis of Extremely Low Frequency Radio-Wave Propagation in the Ionosphere

Allocated

Extremely low frequency (ELF) radio-waves (3 Hz to 3 kHz) can be generated from atmospheric events, such as lightning discharges, and have been observed to propagate over large distances, e.g., completely around the earth. This occurs as the radio-waves get `trapped', bouncing between the surface of the earth and layers of the ionosphere. The goal of this project is to ... Read more

Radio Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#4: FPGA Based Design and Implementation of DS-CDMA System

Allocated

How to transfer the DSSS transceiver theoretical model into a Prototype is to be learned in this project. CDMA systems can be designed and developed in FPGA technology. In particular, the methods of designing and emulating digital random sequences for spreading purposes and channel emulation will be investigated. The initial step will be mathematical modelling and simulation of the system ... Read more

Telecommunications

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#5: Prototype Design of a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum System in Digital Technology

Unallocated

Due to the development of digital technology most processing in communication system transceivers should be performed in discrete time domain. Following this modern trends, in this Project, a Prototype of a Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum System (DS-SSS) Transceiver will be designed and developed primarily in FPGA technology. The Prototype will be based on the theoretical model of the system and ... Read more

No Category

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#6: Automated cyber bullying detection

Allocated

The aim of the project is to develop algorithms for automatically detecting cyber bullying on websites such as Facebook and smart phone apps such as whatsapp. A related web interface also needs to be developed. Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#7: SmartFashion – A Visual Recognition Tool for Clothing

Allocated

The primary idea is to develop a server-client architecture, where anyone can take a picture of a wearable product, e.g., shoes, shirt, etc and upload it via there phone to a server.The server then tags the image and crawls the web searching for cheaper/similar options.This project includes image processing, machine learning, python and android Java programming. Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#8: Long-Range Wireless Communications for the Internet of Things

Allocated

To enable the Internet of Things (IoT), there is a need for wireless communication systems that support low data rates over large distances with very low power consumption. This project will investigate the recently proposed LoRaWAN (Long-Range Wide Area Network) standard for IoT networks, which promises to enable successful transmission of data packets over 10s of kilometers at very low ... Read more

Telecommunications

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#9: A wirelessly powered vehicle to grid (V2G) demonstration system

Allocated

This project aims to design and build a scaled down version of a vehicle-to-grid (V2G) system to demonstrate the applicability of this concept in energy management. A toy electronic car will be used as an electric vehicle and a supercapacitor is used as its battery. Students are expected to design and build a wireless power interface between the car and ... Read more

Green Energy Technologies

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#10: Design and development of a Solid State Transformer (SST)

Unallocated

Solid State Transformers (SST) are becoming popular as an alternative technology for conventional transformers. Students are expected to carry-out a thorough investigation, using simulations, into existing technologies of SST, and design and build a scaled down version of a STT to demonstrate the applicability the concept. The project involves modelling, analysis, simulations and both software and hardware design. Read more

No Category

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#11: Machine defeats a machine

Allocated

The aim of this project is to make an Altera FPGA play the game on PC, Phone or another FPGA. The game can be run on any of these platforms and the screen information is fed to FPGA using VGA output from the device or the camera. FPGA will perform image processing on the incoming frames and send key commands ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#12: Machine learning models for estimating SoC of a Li-ion battery

Allocated

This project intends to design and develop a system that will track the charge of all cells inside a battery. It will then use this input to estimate where in the charge cycle the cell is and use this to adjust the belief of the cell’s capacity. The system will then be able to determine how to discharge the entire ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#13: Lecturer to students interaction tool

Allocated

The goal of this project is to design and build a mobile phone / tablet interaction software to offer communication between the lecturer and the students during lectures. The idea is to provide a platform for the lecturer to offer questions to the students and collect the answers within 10-15 min (during the lectures, or during the lecture breaks). This ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#14: Small Antennas for Body Area Networks

Allocated

Body Area Networks (BANs) are wireless networks in which the communications links involves physical channels that are in close proximity to or even within the human body. These networks are finding applications in a range of areas including disease monitoring, emergency communications in rescue environments and military/battlefield communications. The ‘body area’ environment is challenging for communication systems design due to ... Read more

Radio Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#15: High-Performance Metasurface Waveguides

Allocated

Waveguides for high-frequency signals have traditionally been realised using bulky three dimensional structures, e.g. coaxial cable, rectangular/circular waveguides supporting non-TEM modes, etc). However, recently there has been some interest in developing planar waveguiding structures using metasurfaces. Metasurfaces are two-dimensional equivalents of metamaterials, which are structures that contain a repeating microstructure - the elements of which are much smaller than a ... Read more

Radio Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#16: Development of an Optimal Lighting Configuration for Hyperspectral Imaging based Analysis

Allocated

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) technology is widely used nowadays for food quality and safety analysis to handle limitations of conventional methods[1,2]. The conventional methods are considered time-consuming, laborious, destructive, required complex sample preparation, required chemical substances, required experts all the time, and some of them are subjective. Applications of HSI technology give a huge benefit for food industries through providing a ... Read more

Image & Voice Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#17: Gamified Code Challenger

Allocated

The primary idea of this project is to create a heavily gamified coding challenge web application with significant gamification features for user motivation and engagement. This application is targeted at students studying coding-centric subjects that want to practice coding for the purpose of improving their skills and practicing for technical interviews. This project includes design concepts, and full stack web ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#18: FluxMusic: Crowd-sourced Music Suggestions using Machine Learning

Allocated

Many public venues of which music is an important addition often hire DJs and the like to provide a selection of music and tie it together. More often than not, patrons of the venue will be constantly suggesting songs to be played to the host and often results in juggling devices or rejections. An opportunity exists to provide software that ... Read more

Smart Phone & Tablet Applications

Software Engineering

#19: Accelerating the query processing

Unallocated

The software implementation of online stream processing algorithms cannot achieve the required performance due to limited computation capacity of the processing resource which is unable to handle stream data coming at a very high speed and needs to be dealt with in a certain period of time. Since, modern processor architectures include highly parallel CPUs, GPUs and other types of ... Read more

No Category

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#21: Ferrite-less pad for EV Charging

Unallocated

Ferrite-less pads have now been proposed for the transmitting (on ground) pad of an IPT system for EV charging and other applications. They have the advantages of ruggedness as there is no fragile ferrite however they use more copper in the winding(s) and as a result they may have a cost and an efficiency penalty. The pads have a reflection ... Read more

No Category

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#22: Investigation of a hypothetical mechanism for weak electromagnetic field bio-interaction.

Allocated

Various authors have published experimental results indicative of weak electromagnetic field bio-interaction. To date, these results have met with scepticism within the wider scientific community. In part, this scepticism arises because there is no agreed physical mechanism which explains how such weak-field effects could occur. The purpose of this project is to implement (in MATLAB) a hypothetical mechanism that has ... Read more

Radio Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#23: Experience Planner: Providing an Authentic Cultural Experience to Tourists in NZ

Allocated

Tourism has a significant impact on New Zealand's economy, contributing ~$30 billion (annually) and supporting ~12% of the people employed in the country. However, much of tourism in New Zealand is seasonal, and tourists typically visit the same iconic spots. Many tourists participate in "drive through" tourism, spending their money in supermarkets and petrol stations rather than in local businesses. ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#24: Runtime Enforcement of Cyber-Physical Systems – A Pacemaker Case Study

Allocated

A heart on a chip (HoC) is an embedded device that can be used for testing of pacemakers in real-time like a live heart. UoA has designed one of the first HoC and you may watch a video at: http://pretzel.ece.auckland.ac.nz/bio. A limitation of the current HoC is that it behaves like a healthy human heart. In order to be ... Read more

Intelligent Systems & Industrial Informatics

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#25: A design environment for Intelligent Transportation Systems using Cities: Skylines

Allocated

Intelligent transportation systems (ITS) incorporate distributed control and coordination to ensure better and safer transportation networks, reduced carbon emissions and improved traffic flow. In particular, ITS stands to benefit greatly from the synergy of technologies for traffic simulation, real-time control, and communication networks. In this project, we seek to use model driven approach to ITS design and will use Cities: ... Read more

Embedded Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#26: The Digitization of Cooking through the use of Advanced Human Computer Interaction

Allocated

Cooking from a recipe, either from a website or a piece of paper, can be an arduous task if the cook has difficulty remembering the steps in the process. This is disruptive to the cooking and can often extend the time it takes to complete the recipe. The aim of this project is to provide an interface that will give ... Read more

Human Computer Interactions

Software Engineering

#27: Helping students improve their code style

Allocated

This project ultimately aims to help students become better programmers, while at the same time helping instructors to understand where students are struggling. The concept of coding style is not only related to formatting. There may be semantic issues as well. This project involves identifying some poor code style, and developing a tool to detect cases of these issues. The ... Read more

Software Development Tools and Processes 1

Software Engineering

#28: Assisted Educational Code Reviews

Allocated

Code reviews are an important aspect of the software industry aiming to improve code quality from different perspectives. It also helps programmers become better programmers. There exist various tools either used or not used by the industry. Some practices still require the user’s intervention. The aim of this project is to understand the industry demands for code reviews and practices ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#29: Semantic Rule based Program Behavioural Monitoring

Unallocated

Semantic Web provides a context enriched framework for future internet applications. Semantic Web Rule Language (SWRL) is a logical based notation for describing relationships among the different data entities documented by the Web Ontology Language (OWL). This project investigate the possibility of using the ontological rules and its reasoning engines to monitor the dynamic behaviours of semantic web applications during ... Read more

No Category

Software Engineering

#30: NI Autonomous Robotics Competition 2017

Allocated

For a number of years now National Instruments has been running an autonomous robotics competition (called NI ARC) open to teams from tertiary institutions across Australia and New Zealand. The University of Auckland has competed in this for a number of years and the plan is to do the same for 2017. Each year the task has involved the development ... Read more

Robotics

Computer Systems Engineering

#31: Development of an analog-based noise-cancelling headphone for use in aircraft passenger cabins

Allocated

Headphones currently supplied to economy-class passengers in aircraft are very low cost and do not incorporate noise-cancelling capability. This project will continue the work of a project group last year that looked at the development of a low-cost analog-based noise cancelling technology for use in such headphones, the primary goal being to attenuate cabin noise. Though digital solutions are usually ... Read more

Power Electronics & Electronics Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#32: Learning Visual-Verbal Mappings on an Assistive Robot

Allocated

Consider a robot assisting humans in offices, homes, or other complex application domains. To truly interact with and assist humans in such domains, the robot and the humans need to have a common vocabulary to describe objects and events based on what is seen and heard. However, it is difficult for humans to equip the robot with a comprehensive and ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#33: Simplicity - Extending a simple programming language.

Allocated

This project will extend and develop Simplicity. Simplicity is a programming language for novice programmers which makes syntax errors impossible, and maintains a continually runnable version of the code as the code is modified. This adds a challenge to the design by constraining input at the same time as encouraging experimentation. In many cases a careful choice of default values ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#34: Posture Alert

Allocated

Desk-based office workers typically spend a high amount of time sitting in the chair every day and often in prolonged unbroken bouts. They do not always sit properly as they are not aware of sitting instructions and their sitting posture. Excessive time spent in wrong seating position is a major source of health problem and lead leading cause of pathological ... Read more

Power Electronics & Electronics Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#35: AssistBot: Autonomy in Human-Robot Collaboration

Allocated

This project seeks to enable a robot to operate as an indoor office assistant, finding and moving objects from/to specific locations. The robot will reason with incomplete knowledge about the domain to construct plans for specific goals. During plan execution, the robot will use sensor inputs (primarily vision and speech) to acquire probabilistic information that will be used to revise ... Read more

Robotics

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#36: QualOpt: A web app to support qualitative research

Allocated

This project will develop a web application to support qualitative research. The web app will allow three different types of users to login (researchers, study participants and admins). Each user type will have their own workflow. The web app will connect to a database and must be secure. Read more

Web tools and Application

Software Engineering

#37: AllerID: An app for food allergy sufferers

Allocated

This project involves developing a smart phone app to help identify food allergies and intolerances. The app will allow users to track food intake and symptoms. The backend will perform machine learning on the data input by the user to help the user identify the food triggers for symptoms they experience. Read more

Smart Phone & Tablet Applications

Software Engineering

#38: Optimisation of commercial LED lighting systems

Allocated

The LED lighting is taking the market by storm. There are many LED products on the market, each offering different performance. In this project we will focus on a study to determine the most cost effective and highest achievable performance of LED lighting systems in commercial applications. We will be comparing performances of several LED products, building DIALux lighting ... Read more

Green Energy Technologies

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#39: From Digital Repository to Linked Data - Citation and Statistics

Unallocated

The University of Auckland Library is the most extensive university library system in New Zealand and a national leader in the provision and development of digital resources. Its research repository has over one thousand open access journal articles, and thousands of open access theses. Many of these publications contain named entities, such as, titles, authors, venues, publisher, areas specific keywords, ... Read more

No Category

Software Engineering

#40: Image Compression via Compressive Sensing: Get More By Using Less

Allocated

"The sampling theorem is wrong! ... It engenders the psychological expectation that we need very large number of samples in situation where we need very few. ...". Compressive sensing (CS) [1,2] is a recently emerged signal processing technique that opposes the conventional wisdom in signal representation and reconstruction. This novel technique enables accurate, if not perfect, recovery of signals from ... Read more

Signal Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#41: Optimising Background Estimation with Superpixels

Allocated

Background estimation is an important task in computer vision which involves using motion to isolate object(s) of interest in videos. A recent algorithm called SuperBE uses superpixels (groups of pixels clustered together for colour and spatial coherency) to help improve accuracy and reduce computational complexity. We are interested in exploring ways to further optimise the algorithm, for speed and accuracy, ... Read more

Image & Voice Processing

Computer Systems Engineering

#42: Stereo-Vision-based Joint Tracking and Exercise Recognition

Allocated

Monitoring and tracking human movements and recognizing the type of activity is a current “hot topic” in the field of computer engineering. A specific application of such technology would be in sports science whereby the movements and actions of a person are automatically detected and recognised using a platform as simple as a mobile phone. Essentially monitoring human exercise can ... Read more

Intelligent Systems & Industrial Informatics

Computer Systems Engineering

#43: Baxter: The Robot Puppet for Industrial Automation

Allocated

In many industrial automation settings, robots are trained using a “teach pendant” or similar technology where a human moves a wand and the robot follows. Baxter is a humanoid robot designed for industrial environments. In this project, students will use an existing wireless sensor node technology to create a robot puppet control system, where the human instructor wears accelerometer (or ... Read more

Robotics

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#44: LDC Filtering for extracting control signals

Allocated

In the application of our Load Demand Controller (LDC) an 800 Hz control signal is inductively coupled on to the phase wire of a low voltage distribution system using IPT technology. The coupled voltage may be ½ to 1 Volt peak to peak at a frequency of 800 Hz but over a relatively large distance this voltage may attenuate to ... Read more

Green Energy Technologies

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#45: Gesture Recognition for Ambient Intelligent Systems Using Indoor 3D Localisation

Allocated

Accurate location information of occupants in a physical environment is crucial for providing intelligent context-aware services. The aim of this project is to investigate existing indoor positioning technologies (non-image/video based), and to design and develop a system with corresponding software algorithms that can localise and possibly track specific human occupants. The system will consist of a number of embedded devices ... Read more

Embedded Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#46: Facility Location Problem over Auckland Spatial Network

Allocated

Facility location problem concerned with the optimal placement of facilities to minimize transportation costs while considering factors like load balancing and competitor's facilities. Instances of the problem are e.g. where should a new supermarket chain open its stores in Auckland to maximise customer flow? where should a health provider locate medical facilities? More formally, the problem can be described as ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#47: Social Network Integration

Allocated

A social network consists of a set of members and social relations among these members. Network integration refers to the situation when ties are established between members of two social networks. This corresponds to a process of "dissolving" two networks into a single entity. Real-life examples of network integration include mergers and acquisitions of companies, or collaboration between research teams. ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#48: Flux measurement for electric vehicle wireless charging systems

Allocated

This project aims to create a measurement and evaluation system of the field surrounding a wireless charging system. The group will be responsible for building and developing multiple flux probes, to be placed around a working IPT charging system. They will also need to design and build suitable interfaces to and data collection means in a computer to enable quick ... Read more

Wireless Power Technologies

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#49: Auxiliary power supply for Formula SAE electric vehicle

Unallocated

This project is to develop an auxiliary power supply for a Formula SAE electric vehicle for the annual Australasian Formula SAE competition. The input of the power supply is the main lithium battery pack rated at 600V, and the required output voltage is 24VDC for driving the pumps of the cooling system, various sensors, and the control circuits, with a ... Read more

No Category

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#50: A dynamic primary resonant converter for ultrasonic power transfer

Allocated

UPT (Ultrasonic Power Transfer) has been proposed as an alternative solution to achieving wireless/contactless power transfer. UPT has the ability to transfer power across metal barriers, along with many other unique features. This project is to develop a resonant power convert to drive the ultrasonic transducer at the primary side of an UPT system. The converter will need to be ... Read more

Wireless Power Technologies

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#51: Infrastructure for wireless long term environment monitoring

Allocated

Niwa is currently involved in project that aims to generate real-time data on the health of the air in urban (and possibly rural) areas. They have developed their first version of a instrument platform that can record long term measurements on removable memory media. This project will first investigate solutions to create a wireless network with a very large number ... Read more

Radio Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#52: Collision detection for rowing skiffs

Allocated

This project will investigate techniques in detecting the potential of collisions and provide audio-visual feedback to the rowers. The final solution will be durable, water proof and easily deployable in a variety of coxless rowing boats. Read more

Embedded Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#53: Autonomous Landing System for Air Drones

Allocated

Multi-camera image processing provides better control to navigate autonomous air drones, which have become popular to collect surveillance and navigation information. One of the key operations for such drones is autonomous landing. The aim of this project is to investigate and design hardware and software components of a proper control system based on image processing algorithms for drone landing on ... Read more

Image & Voice Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#54: Bitstream sensorless drives for BLDC and stepper motors

Unallocated

This project will implement various classical techniques in sensors less BLDC motor control with an eventual aim to use bitstreams instead of C language based control. Sinusoidal drives have been developed for stepper motors but its performance in speed and position control has not been evaluated. In addition, torque ripple, rotor resonance and missed step detection has never been done. ... Read more

No Category

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#55: Spike Sorting

Allocated

We intend to develop our own spike sorting software package that complements a joint PhD project with Pharmacology. This project grows brain cells on a custom built rig to evaluate efficacies of various drugs. At present 14 channels of output present the neuronal spikes from the entire rig. The software package created in this project will attempt separate the spikes ... Read more

Intelligent Systems & Industrial Informatics

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#56: Integrated Home Automation Hub on Multi-Processor System on Chip

Allocated

State-of-the-art FPGA chips provide multi-core processors (such as ARM Cortex A9), re-configurable FPGA logic and memory resources in addition to different types of I/O interfaces. This provides the possibility to use HW/SW co-design approach to meet the specified design constraints and also optimize the final implementation. The aim of this project is to use an embedded application to explore the ... Read more

Embedded Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#57: Structural Damage Detection

Allocated

Structural health monitoring i.e. to detect damage in the structure at the earliest possible state is crucial in civil, mechanical, aerospace and other engineering communities. Most of the existing damage detection methods are either visual or experimental such as acoustic or ultrasonic methods, magnet field methods, radiographs, eddy-current methods and thermal field methods. However, these experimental techniques require that the ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#58: Power Quality Assessment and Control in Smart Grid

Allocated

The increase penetration of renewable energy and use of electronic load into the electric grid poses significant challenge regarding the power quality issues and energy management. These penetrations will increase harmonic distortion, frequent switching of load will result in flicker etc. This project intends to assess the power quality and implement power control and communication scheme in smart grid integration ... Read more

Power Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#59: Developing an online tool to help novice programmers improve debugging skills

Allocated

Debugging is a fundamental skill for all programmers, yet it is not formally taught in most introductory programming courses. Students typically acquire debugging skills by trial and error. This project will develop a web-based educational tool that provides feedback to students as they work through debugging activities. Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#60: Visualising software design by visualising dynamic behaviour

Allocated

Software Visualisation is about providing some kind of view, typically graphical, of software systems other than just looking at the source code, with the hope of improving our understanding of some aspect of the system software design. Typical software visualisation techniques focus on the static structure of the software, however understanding the design usually involves understanding how it will behave ... Read more

Software Development Tools and Processes 1

Software Engineering

#61: Supporting Mastery Learning

Allocated

Mastery learning involves students demonstrating that they have mastered a topic before they advance to a following topic. To demonstrate mastery, students must perform an assessed task and show that they have reached the appropriate level of expertise. This project will develop a web-based framework that supports mastery learning by automatically assessing simple programming tasks and tracking performance across those ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#62: Real-time dependency visualisation of Java in Eclipse

Unallocated

When people talk about doing "good software deign", they often refer to developing a design that consists of units (or "modules" or "classes") that are as "independent" as possible. There must be some amount of dependence between the units otherwise the result would be disconnected, and so not able to function as a system. The trick is figuring out how ... Read more

No Category

Software Engineering

#63: Hand gesture-based 3D navigation

Allocated

Gesture-based interactions are becoming popular with technologies such as LeapMotion and Kinect in the consumer market. However, identifying good gestures for particular use cases is still a research topic with few accepted norms associating gestures to particular functions.This project will investigate the development of a hand gesture set (utilising LeapMotion) which is suitable for navigation of a 3D environment. 3D ... Read more

Human Computer Interactions

Software Engineering

#64: Workspace Recommender System for an Intelligent Campus

Allocated

Smart Buildings and Smart Cities are an exciting confluence of big-data, open systems, and intelligent systems. These concepts can be applied to different clusters of infrastructure, and in this case we will investigate the Smart Campus concept. Looking to tie together information streams from various parts of the university, along with models of campus buildings, to deliver greater information through ... Read more

Intelligent Systems & Industrial Informatics

Software Engineering

#65: Vision based Robot Arm Control

Allocated

This project will redesign the arm controller already developed by UoA and Ritsumeikan researchers in our NZ-Japan collaboration. The new goals will be: 1) less expensive control using on/off valves instead of regulators, 2) replacement of the pneumatic air source with a miniature portable one, 3) improved vision based control of the arm based on a specific arm Jacobian control ... Read more

Robotics

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#66: Medical Health Consent Application and Data Collection

Allocated

The aim of the project is to create a prototype application that can extract health data from different sources. This would enable health professionals to access useful data about the patient’s lifestyle. This application will give the user the ability to holistically view health data from multiple sources in one streamlined application. These sources may include health apps (such as ... Read more

Smart Phone & Tablet Applications

Software Engineering

#67: UoA Robot Manager Framework V2

Allocated

We develop functionalities of robots, such as navigation, visual recognition, and speech recognition, as well as services of robots, such as healthcare management, games, and entertainments. But it is difficult to apply them to various platforms because the environments of robots, such as operating system, middleware, and interface, are various. This project will develop a robot software framework for applying ... Read more

Robotics

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#68: Mental Health Mobile App

Allocated

This project will develop a mental health mobile app. The application will be targeted specifically towards people suffering from depression, but with the potential to broaden its scope to people with other mental health problems in the future. The app will provide peer-to-peer chat, help users find professional help, and provide online resources, among other features. Read more

Smart Phone & Tablet Applications

Software Engineering

#69: Scheduling using machine learning

Allocated

Parallel computing has become extremely important in today's IT world. Almost all computers are now parallel systems. To efficiently use them one needs to divide a program into tasks and to schedule them onto the processors or cores of the system. Theoretically this is addressed by task scheduling where a program is described by a directed acyclic graph, a so ... Read more

Parallel & Cloud Computing

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#70: Towards Intelligent Software Systems - A Home Energy Management Case Study

Allocated

Capabilities of computing machines (multi-core and distributed/networked systems with Internet accessibility) have reached the point where software becomes the major bottleneck due to their complexity, heterogeneity and interoperability. The existing software tools (languages and run-time systems) do not allow to fully using those capabilities. The research results on new software paradigms at ECE Department that extend concurrent programming with service ... Read more

Software Development Tools and Processes 1

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#71: High performance processing in FPGAs for Square Kilometre Array (SKA)

Allocated

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA, https://www.skatelescope.org/) will be the world's largest radio telescope. A major challenge for its construction is the transportation and processing of the massive amounts of data produced by the many radio telescope dishes. The research of this project is to use FPGAs as reconfigurable high performance processing units for the processing needs of the SKA. ... Read more

Parallel & Cloud Computing

Computer Systems Engineering

#72: Circuit sketching and electronic log book on Android tablet

Allocated

Sketching an electrical circuit on a piece of paper is usually faster and easier than using a circuit design tool on a computer. In this project we want to bring this ease to pen-based tablets under Android. Previously a software tool prototype was developed in the Parallel and Reconfigurable Computing (PARC) lab that recognizes typical components of electrical circuits ... Read more

Parallel & Cloud Computing

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#73: An Integrated Simulation System for Wireless Power Design

Allocated

Wireless Power Transfer (WPT) has become a popular technology for driving modern electronic devices. However, due to its engineering nature, the current design and production of WPT are mainly experimental based. This project aims at the development of a simulation software that supports the visual design of WPT. The proposed tool will serve as an integrated simulation environment for designing ... Read more

Software Development Tools and Processes 1

Software Engineering

#74: Automating System Design Flow – From High-level Specification to the Running Systems on NoC Platform

Unallocated

The dream of the computer systems designers always was to transform a design specification to a running system automatically, without (or with minimal) human/designer intervention. New technological developments that bring together multi-core computing with FPGAs create huge opportunities. The most recent acquisition of Altera by Intel Corporation indicates that some key pre-conditions for achievement of this dream are created. However, ... Read more

No Category

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#75: BackPocketDriver: An App to Encourage Safe Driving in Youth Drivers

Allocated

BackPocketDriver is an established research project whose aim is to encourage young drivers to adopt and hone safe driving skills. Youth drivers in the 16-24 years category are by far the most at-risk group on NZ roads.Currently, BackPocketDriver comprises a smartphone app and a Web service. The app monitors driver behaviour, including speed, turning, acceleration and braking. Its feature-set is ... Read more

Smart Phone & Tablet Applications

Software Engineering

#76: A Fitness Coaching App for Runners

Allocated

Exercise-based rehabilitation is a critical part of treatment for people with cardiovascular disease; however, participation in traditional programmes is very low (typically 10%-40%). Many people are unable to complete rehabilitation because they cannot access existing face-to-face programmes in hospitals and clinical centres. Remote collection, transmission, and monitoring of physiological and geopositional sensor data can enable clinical rehabilitation specialists to provide ... Read more

Web tools and Application

Software Engineering

#77: New Grid Services using EV Fast Charging Infrastructure

Allocated

As electric vehicles uptake increases, there is a growth in the installation of EV fast charging infrastructure across the country. There are several fast chargers-vehicle communication standards emerging like CHAdeMO, CCS (complying with IECE 62196), Tesla proprietary superchargers etc. Alongside this, the standard SAE J1722 home chargers are likely to mushroom with increasing ownership of EV’s. From power systems viewpoint ... Read more

Power Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#78: Secure and Scalable UoA Peer-to-Peer Transactive Energy System

Allocated

In the Smart Grid environment, increasingly homes and businesses are investing in solar PV, high-energy battery storage systems and EV's. There is a need now to evolve mechanisms, tools and framework to purchase electricity not only from the energy retailers but also to trade peer-to-peer amongst consumers. Transactive energy is the emerging area of Power systems economics that has started ... Read more

Power Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#79: Communication through unreliable mesh networks

Allocated

In mesh networks, messages are passed from one node to another so that they eventually reach their intended destination. Often there are a number of different pathways available to convey a message from its source to its destination. Some pathways might be shorter and faster than others, some might require less energy and some might be more reliable. Choosing the ... Read more

Telecommunications

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#80: Enhancing frequency reuse in single channel wireless networks through timeslot scheduling

Allocated

This project concerns the design and implementation of TDMA (time division multiple access) wireless communications systems. In wireless communication systems the spatial reuse of radio channels is important for improving the efficiency of spectrum use. In other words, a wireless communication system will have greater traffic carrying capacity if the same radio channel (frequency) can be reused simultaneously in two ... Read more

Telecommunications

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#81: Code at a glance

Allocated

Navigating code is according to studies consuming a considerable amount of time of developers.In this project we want to explore novel ways to speed up navigating between parts of the code with the use of an existing gaze tracking technology connected to the popular IntelliJ IDE. Read more

Software Development Tools and Processes 1

Software Engineering

#82: Cloud-based Anomalous Taxi Route Detection System

Allocated

Unlike other public transportation services, the taxi service provides a convenient door-to-door way of transportation. It plays a uniquely important role in our daily life, especially when one travels to an unfamiliar place. The taxi service usually charges passengers based on the time or mileages they have taken. Taxi passengers can suffer from the risk of being overcharged on the ... Read more

Web tools and Application

Software Engineering

#83: Personalised Overseas Student Accommodation Recommender System

Allocated

Every year, thousands of overseas students come to New Zealand for their study. Due to language barriers or lack of familiarity with the local lifestyles, it is a challenging task for the students to find appropriate accommodation. Traditionally, the students find their accommodation out of a limited range of candidates by manually searching online advertisements published on local community websites. ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#84: Interactive learning of abstract programming concepts

Allocated

For a beginner, complex programming concepts like inheritance and polymorphism can be difficult to understand. Though many apps exist to try and teach programming, they focus on descriptions and code examples, having little engagement. To ease the understanding of such abstract concepts, the learning process can be made interactive. Object oriented programming lends itself well to real world metaphors, which ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#85: 'Story': A community driven narrative builder

Allocated

The idea of the Story mobile app is to allow enthusiast book readers and authors to explore a new style of literature, experiencing it from many different perspectives. Stories will be written part by part, by different users adding to the story lines one after the other with a maximum character limit each to build up collaborative narratives. There will ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#86: A Low-Cost Misalignment Tolerant Wireless Charger for Consumer Electronics

Allocated

Inductive power transfer (IPT) based wireless chargers are becoming a popular choice to power/charge many consumer electronic (CE) devices such as mobile phones, smart watches, laptops, etc. Unfortunately, IPT technologies developed to-date for CE applications suffer from significant loss of efficiency and/or power throughput when the receiver is not well aligned with the transmitter. This range limitation has somewhat hindered ... Read more

Wireless Power Technologies

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#87: Analysis and Optimisation of Critical Component in an Electric Fence Energiser

Allocated

An electric fence energiser is a high-voltage pulsed power supply capable of generating output pulses with voltages reaching 10 kV and currents reaching a few hundred Amperes. However, the duration of the output pulse generated by an energiser is limited to about a fraction of a mili-second thus limiting the energy in the pulse to between a few joules to ... Read more

Power Electronics & Electronics Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#88: Integration of PV and high energy storage systems into shipboard power systems

Allocated

Smart Grid technologies are becoming ever more pervasive in society as the demand and necessity for a more sustainable economy grows. One important method of transportation transitioning away from a dependence upon fossil fuels, towards sustainable technologies, is the shipping industry. This project seeks to integrate the existing technology of solar panels and battery storage into the ... Read more

Power Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#89: Interaction in VR with gaze tracking

Allocated

Gaze-tracking is used extensively in many different industries to study human perception. In particular, information regarding how the human eye reacts to stimuli is important in developing efficient and usable interfaces that exclude superfluous elements. This project will focus on utilizing a gaze-tracking enabled Virtual Reality Headset (SMI HTC Vive) to allow the user to interact and/or perform tasks on ... Read more

Human Computer Interactions

Software Engineering

#90: Healthcare robot behaviour generation for the Robogen2 cloud server

Unallocated

Robogen2 is our central software for managing our Healthcare robots. It allows us to generate software images for downloading to a robot that provide specific functionality based on the studies a patient is enrolled in. These images are generated from a series of service definitions (or packages). Currently, these packages are hand-coded and then uploaded to Robogen2. This project will ... Read more

No Category

Software Engineering

#91: Theia: Navigation for the blind

Allocated

This project involves the investigation and prototyping of an Android app to aid the blind community to navigate the world. The app is targetted for use in particular areas that Google Maps or other mapping tools are not precise enough to give directions, e.g. beach/bush/open areas in general. Utilising the phones internal sensors and GPS the system will geo tag ... Read more

Smart Phone & Tablet Applications

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#92: Educational Simulator of electric Circuits using Game Engines

Allocated

Analysis of electric circuits using different circuit theory methods is a challenging task to perceive by many students in electrical and computer engineering. The aim of this project is to create a game engine that encourages students to learn and engage with each topic, for a better understanding over electrical circuits and its different circuit theory methods. The game ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#93: Cloud-based Māori Pronunication Application.

Allocated

The MPAi project has developed a language pronunciation aid which uses a variety of technologies, including speech recognition to provide feedback to users about their pronunciation of Maori. The current system work on a pc, and is designed for people who can speak Māori, and are wanting to improve their pronunciation. This project is about developing a sister product, it ... Read more

Human Computer Interactions

Software Engineering

#94: How Much Does Movement Impact on the Speech Signal?

Allocated

These days speech recordings from mobile phones are increasingly being used human machine interfaces. One of the things about mobile phones is that people can move around considerably as they speak into their phones. The question is how much does this physical activity impact on the speech signal, since the breathing mechanism is also tied in with the speech mechanism. ... Read more

Signal Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#95: Entering Marks Using Machine Vision

Allocated

Entering assignment/test marks by hand is a daunting task that requires a substantial amount of time and labour in order to ensure the accuracy of the entries. This task becomes increasingly difficult as the size of the class increases. The goal of this project is to design and develop an automated approach in entering marks using machine vision with emphasis ... Read more

Image & Voice Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#96: A serverless, cloud-based interface for the monitoring of global machine performance

Allocated

To explore state-of-the-art cloud architectures and visualisation tools and deliver a proof-of-concept for a tool that Compac’s global service team can use to monitor our customers’ machine performance in near-real-time. Read more

Parallel & Cloud Computing

Software Engineering

#97: An automated testing system for wireless power supplies

Allocated

This project is to design an automated testing system for evaluating the performance of wireless power supplies for low power consumer electronics and industrial applications. The system will enable the variations in the coupling distance, as well as the bilateral and angular misalignments between the transmitter and receiver of a wireless power supply. This would also include a mechanism to ... Read more

Wireless Power Technologies

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#98: Contactless power supply for driving movable displays

Allocated

This project is to design and build a contactless power supply that can directly drive or charge a movable display, such as variable message signs rated up to 200W. Both IPT (Inductive Power Transfer) and CPT (Capacitive Power Transfer) solutions will be investigated and compared first, then a practical contactless power supply will be fully designed and built. The ... Read more

Power Electronics & Electronics Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#99: Fall detection system using Microsoft’s Kinect

Allocated

Serious injuries associated with falls in the elder age group is a big health care problem. Some studies have estimated that one in every three adults aging above 65 will fall at least once per year. Elderly fall can lead to serious injuries such as traumatic brain injuries, bone fractures leading to immobility. According to ACC’s statistical report, there are ... Read more

AI & Machine learning

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#100: Online Platform for Tutoring Services

Allocated

Problem: Many students in high schools and universities seek tutoring services for help with their courses. Some university students also look for part time opportunities to earn money through tutoring jobs. Currently, there are three main options for tutors and students to connect:- Advertisements posted on social media sites, such as in Facebook groups. These offer the most flexibility for ... Read more

Web tools and Application

Software Engineering

#101: Student to lecturer in-class interaction tool

Allocated

The goal of this project is to design and build a web-based interaction tool that will enable students to ask questions within the time constraints of a typical lecture. Many students, particularly in a large class environment, are reluctant to ask questions. This may be due to anxiety associated with asking a question in front of their peers or interrupting ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#102: Collaborative Lo-Fi Prototyping Tool using the Microsoft Surface Hub

Allocated

Lo-fi prototyping is an essential step in any software development endeavour. It is particularly useful for designing the ever growing number of web, mobile and game based software applications. Lo-fi prototyping is currently done using paper and pen or digital tools such as Balsamiq and Pencil. These platforms typically allow for single user input at a time while lo-fi prototyping ... Read more

Software Development Tools and Processes 1

Software Engineering

#103: Real-time Wildlife Detection and Identification for Monitoring the Prevalence of Pests

Allocated

Reliable pest control is essential for proper protection of palatable vegetation and protected species. Existing monitoring methods are largely based on blind traps, offline detection devices, and supervised post-surveillancing, however a low-cost, automated approach in real time may be a much more desirable compromise subject to its robustness. The aim of this project is to investigate the feasibility of detecting ... Read more

Image & Voice Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#104: Linking Game Engines with Music Software

Allocated

Music production, especially for EDM, has had two major production interfaces - the original hardware interface, with racks of instruments and effects that interoperate, and then a migration of these racks into a software realm. Our research is to attempt to create an evolution to the software racks into virtual reality. The research will focus on the development of an ... Read more

Signal Processing

Software Engineering

#105: Are there differences in the glottal flow signal of voiced speech between languages?

Allocated

Spoken language identification systems have applications in verbal translation, international security, user interfacing, big data and a multitude of other automatic speech recognition applications. However, determining which features of speech are the most effective means of identification is the subject of ongoing research. A relatively unexplored area in spoken language identification is the glottal flow signal. Glottal flow parameters have ... Read more

Signal Processing

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#106: Music Notation Printer

Allocated

Music theory is one of the most difficult aspects of music. A lot of new musicians, and students of the art, struggle with the theory especially with music notation. This proposal seeks to bridge the gap between music performance and theory/notation, to aid our young musicians in their craft. This project aims to design a device to be able to ... Read more

Signal Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#107: Wireless Measurement Ruler

Allocated

The aim of the project is to design a wireless digital measuring tool, as well as investigating algorithms to accurately calculate distance using accelerometer data. The tool can be used in tight, compact places where a conventional ruler may not reach. Distance would be measured by moving the tool steadily along the edge of an object. In addition to this, ... Read more

Power Electronics & Electronics Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#108: Virtual reality for education

Allocated

This project will investigate VR for an educational context. Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Software Engineering

#109: Multi-processor System on Chip for Real-time Face Detection

Allocated

State-of-the-art FPGAs integrate multi hard core processors in addition to configurable logic resources on a single chip, which provides opportunities to use HW/SW co-design paradigm to design embedded systems. Using air drones for different types of applications such as surveillance, search and rescue, environmental monitoring etc has extended in recent years. To meet the specified design constraints for such systems ... Read more

Embedded Systems

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#110: Immersion or diversion: Does VR make data visualisation more effective?

Allocated

Virtual desktops expand the virtual space of a computer’s desktop environment beyond the physical space of a traditional display device (monitor). This can be done by using different display devices such as stereo monitors of head-mounted displays (HMDs), which provide a 360 degree environment. While HMDs have been used before, a common problem motion sickness and the difficulty of interacting ... Read more

Human Computer Interactions

Software Engineering

#111: A multi-platform application for cognitive training for dementia patients

Allocated

Dementia is rapidly developing into one of the biggest challenges to industrialised countries’ healthcare systems. In New Zealand total financial cost of dementia has been estimated to be 1 billion dollar in 2011 and the number of patients is growing 10-20% per year. Cognitive training, such as memory games and cognitive stimulation, potentially can help slowing progress of the disease ... Read more

Human Computer Interactions

Software Engineering

#112: Avoiding Ferroresonance in Distribution Power System Network Operation

Allocated

Counties Power wishes to have the phenomenon of ferroresonance modelled for our 11 kV and 22 kV networks under single phase switching operations, particularly the livening of lightly loaded transformers, and to understand the critical lengths of standard cable and combinations of transformer types which cause ferroresonance to occur. This project will be undertaken by data and information given from ... Read more

Power Systems

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#113: Educational Android app for young musicians learning music theory

Allocated

There is a need for an app to help engage young kids and beginners in learning to read and write music. Physically being able to practise writing on the staff is a key part of learning and the aim is for our app to make this more fun and engaging than practising exercises on paper. The app will be ... Read more

Games & Education Aids 1

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#114: A Prototype to Enable Adaptive mHealth Interventions

Unallocated

This project involves research and development in the area of mobile healthcare (mHealth). The National Institute for Health Innovations (NIHI) develops a number of mHealth interventions. They are keen to explore patient health information that could be utilised to inform the personalisation of mHealth interventions for patients and investigating new delivery systems and sensor/monitoring data that can be incorporated into ... Read more

No Category

Computer Systems Engineering Software Engineering

#115: A virtual reality interface for music performance

Allocated

Music performance, in the context of electronic music, is typically done using a hardware controller with buttons and dials which the performer can use to play different tracks and customise effects such as volume and pitch on-the-fly. The aim of this project is to create a virtual reality user interface for live music performance, combined with a motion tracking camera, ... Read more

Signal Processing

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering Software Engineering

#116: Optimal Control of Wind Energy Systems

Allocated

Wind energy conversion systems are recognised as an important source of clean energy in recent years. Although a mature wind energy conversion technology is now available, there exists several issues. The main problem regarding wind power systems is the major discrepancy between the irregular character of the primary source (wind speed is a random, strongly non-stationary process, with turbulence and ... Read more

Green Energy Technologies

Electrical and Electronic Engineering

#117: Development of 5kW secondary regulators for wireless EV charging

Allocated

This project will focus on the design and implementation of the secondary pad electronics to regulate power for charging an EV battery, compliant with operation at 85 kHz. The system is designed to handle a maximum input power rating of WPT1 (5kW) but initially will be tested at 1kW for safety purposes at 350V DC output. The battery is assumed ... Read more

Wireless Power Technologies

Computer Systems Engineering Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Projects for 2017