Newcastle: ‘delivering solutions in sectors of national significance’
Image: 4Tel CEO, Ms Joanne Wust at the NSW Sensing Industry Connect event.
Co-hosted by the NSW Smart Sensing Network (NSSN) and the University of Newcastle, the third event in the NSW Sensing Industry Connect series took place on 4 May 2021 at the University of Newcastle. The event was part of the wider Hunter Innovation Festival, celebrating innovation in the Newcastle and Hunter region.
NSSN COO Mr Nicholas Haskins opened the event and said the NSSN is committed to strengthening the competitiveness of the NSW industry on a national and international level.
“Whether you are a developer, manufacturer or deployer of smart sensors, we want to learn about your challenges and what a network like ours can do to find the solutions,” said Mr Haskins.
“The NSSN brings together government, industry and universities to talk about some of the gripping challenges that none of us working alone can solve.”
The participants heard from 4Tel CEO, Ms Joanne Wust, and Executive Director of the Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER), Professor Alan Broadfoot, on the impact and value of industry-led research and development (R&D) collaborations.
Established through the Office of the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer, the NSSN is a consortium of eight leading universities from across NSW and the ACT.
Since its inception in 2016, the NSSN has collaborated with key industry and government partners on a number of multimillion-dollar projects.
The Network has developed tailored solutions to complicated problems such as leak detection and prediction in large urban water networks and increasing Australia’s capability in recycling HDPE plastics (milk bottles).
The University of Newcastle, a member university of the NSSN, is home to a number of advanced research institutes with strong capabilities in water management, energy and resources and organic electronics.
As part of the NSSN Smart Sensing to Predict Leaks and Breaks program, researchers from the University of Newcastle have collaborated with major Australian water utilities to develop drone technology to help predict which pipes are at risk of corrosion.
Leaks and breaks in water infrastructure are a huge problem for water utilities across the globe said, Mr Haskins.
“The challenge is particularly acute in Australia, where water is such a precious and finite resource,” Mr Haskins said.
“The NSSN project brought together a multi-disciplinary, multi-university team to explore innovative solutions to a complex challenge from a range of angles. The result is new technologies and new data insights that will significantly improve the detection of leaks and breaks before they occur.”
The University of Newcastle team focussed on underground pipeline corrosion and the detection of leaks in pipes by using light detection and ranging technology (otherwise known as LiDAR).
The researchers investigated LiDAR elevation data for catchment-wide terrain analysis to assess the potential accumulation of soil moisture across suburban environments. The team also used localised site-specific drone-based LiDAR laser intensity return to measure surface reflectivity in order to detect leaks from above the ground, based on a change in soil moisture.
The Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources (NIER), led by Professor Alan Broadfoot, has been delivering transformational solutions in sectors of national significance.
NIER R&D themes include Resource Productivity & Efficiency, Energy Technologies & Utilisation, Advanced Materials for Industrial Innovation, and Land, Water, Social Impacts & Sustainability.
The Centre for Organic Electronics (COE), part of NIER and led by NSSN Ambassador at the University of Newcastle Professor Paul Dastoor, is one of the only research facilities in the world capable of manufacturing printed electronic devices at a commercial scale.
The COE is a global leader in the emerging field of ‘functional printing’, which uses conventional printing technologies to manufacture clever, high performing, low-cost materials to help solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.
The COE marries the creation of clever electronic inks with well-established printing technologies to address global challenges spanning renewable energy, health & medicine, and mining safety.
In 2020, the renewable energy technology manufactured at COE, which is ultra light-weight, ultra flexible, recyclable and cheap to produce, was used to power interactive public lighting in Sydney.
To learn more about the University of Newcastle R&D capabilities, please contact us here.