Dr Mark Whitty | UNSW Research

My Expertise

Digital viticulture, horticultural sensing, image processing, autonomous systems, 3D mapping, unmanned ground vehicles, robotics

Fields of Research (FoR)

Horticultural crop growth and development, Oenology and viticulture, Automation engineering, Autonomous vehicle systems, Field robotics, Autonomous agents and multiagent systems, Intelligent robotics, Computer vision, Image processing

SEO tags

Environmentally Sustainable Plant Production

Wine Grapes

Horticultural Crops

Biography

Mark is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Mechatronics discipline within the School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Please see his research group's page at www.robotics.unsw.edu.au/srv for more details of the work his team has done. His research interests were focussed around digital agriculture and digital viticulture and extend to the following topics, however he is no longer working as a full time academic:

Yield estimation...view more

Yield estimation and data mining in precision viticulture
Digital agriculture including apple flower density estimation
Digital viticulture including smartphone app development
Agricultural robotics
3D point cloud processing

My Grants

Industry Engagement

Consultant to NXTGen Industries for "Review of mechanical, electrical and system design for a robot for bridge maintenance" (2021), value $5,000
Chief Investigator for contract research with Plant and Food Research New Zealand, "Embedded Metadata" (2021), value $9,000.
Chief Investigator for contract research with Green Atlas, "Image Processing in Orchards" (2020), value $5,000.
Chief Investigator for contract research with Plant and Food Research New Zealand, "Semi-automated 3-D and multispectral bunch sorting technologies" (2020), value $50,000.
Partner Investigator for contract research with Plant and Food Research New Zealand, "Hyperspectral imaging of grapevines for spray deposition analysis" (2018 – 2021), value $30,000.
Chief Investigator for contract research with Lincoln Agritech, "Grape Yield Analyser Project" (2019), value $5,000.
Partner Investigator for contract research with Plant and Food Research New Zealand, "Geospatial resolution in vineyards: Project Demonstrator 8008" (2018), value NZD$10,000.
Chief Investigator for contract research with Pernod Ricard, "Data mining for viticultural yield estimation" (2018), value $24,000.
Chief Investigator for contract research with Dematic, "Computer Vision for Rack Inspection" (2017), value $65,714.

Research Grants

Partner Investigator for South Australian Wine Industry Development Scheme, "Using a camera system to track Eutypa in vineyards" (2021-2022), value $173,000.
Partner Investigator for HIA funded Matched Levy Funded Investment Pool and Strategic Coinvestment Pool, "Developing Agri-tech solutions for the Australian apple industry" (2018-2021), value $4,004,000.
Project Supervisor for contract research with Khalifa University, "MBZIRC2020 research grant" (2018 – 2020), value USD$50,000.
Project Supervisor for AGWA funded Ph.D scholarship project “Autonomous In-Vivo Determination of Maturity Parameters” (2016 – 2018), value $30,000.
Chief Investigator for Innovation Connections grant with Makinex "Development of an autonomous concrete cutting robot" (2017), value $99,700.
Chief Investigator for AGWA (Australian Grape and Wine Authority – also known as Wine Australia) (Cat. 1) funded project “Improved Yield Estimation for the Australian Wine Industry” (2014-2017), value $819,000.
Partner Investigator for AGWA (Cat. 1) funded project “Smart-Phone Based Image Analysis to Assess Vine Water Stress” (2016 – 2017), value $332,400.
Partner Investigator for UNSW Strategic Educational Development Grants #2, “Interactive learning modules for Engineering fundamentals” (2014 - 2015), value $300,000.
Chief Investigator for CRC-SI (Cooperative Research Centre for Spatial Information) funded project “Identification of indoor localisation solutions for tracking patients in hospital environments to minimise cross-infection” (2016), value $24,500.
Academic Supervisor for NSW Government Research Attraction and Acceleration Program grant to MBZIRC team, “Science and Engineering Student Competition Sponsorship Program” (2016), value $15,000.
Chief Investigator for AGWA funded travel bursary “Study tour to support automated yield estimation project” (2015), value $1,500.
Academic Supervisor for NSW Government Research Attraction and Acceleration Program grant to IGVC team, “Science and Engineering Student Competition Sponsorship Program” (2015), value $8,000.
Partner Investigator for DAAD research grant to collaborate with the University of Oldenburg “Development of Methodologies to Actively Compensate for Erratic Motions in Micro/Nano Manipulators” (2013-2014), value $20,000.

My Qualifications

2015 Graduate Certificate in University Learning and Teaching at UNSW Australia.
2008 - 2012 PhD, Mechatronic Engineering at the University of New South Wales - link to dissertation titled "Efficient path planning in deformable dense maps."
2003 - 2007 BE (Mechanical) / BSc (Computer Science) at the University of New South Wales

My Awards

Academic Supervisor for UNSW's Competitive Robotics Group, awarded equal second place in Challenge 3 of the 2020 Mohamed bin Zayed International Robotics Challenge.
Supervisor and co-author of Best Student Poster at AWITC2019 and AWITC2016.
Faculty of Engineering Staff Excellence Award for Research Excellence (2016)
Academic Supervisor for New South Solutions, UNSW's entry in the 2015 Telstra University Challenge. Top three teams in Australia for their sun exposure tracking solution. Video.
Academic Supervisor for Saving Allen, UNSW's entry in the IGVC2015 event. Won best UGV performance, breaking all course records.
Academic Supervisor for UNSW Mechatronics Team 2. Won the grand prize in the AGVC2014 event. Featured on ABC TV and online news.
Academic Supervisor for UNSW AGVC Team 2. Won second place overall and and Best Autonomous Vehicle performance at the inaugural Autonomous Ground Vehicle Competition in December 2013
Winner, Student Reporter Contest, ICRA2011, with two articles published in the IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (2001)
William McIlrath Postgraduate Travel Scholarship (2010)
Dean’s Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Research, Best Overall Student (2010)
Best Paper and Best Presentation award, 4^th US-European Workshop on Micro Aerial Vehicles (IMAV09), Pensacola, Florida (2009)
UNSW Research Excellence Award for postgraduate study (2008 - 2011)
Senior Bachelor of Engineering Award, Engineers Australia, Sydney Division (2008)
University Medal for Mechanical Engineering (2007)

My Research Activities

Co-chair of Agriculture and Environment group, National Robotics Network (2020 - 2021)
Treasurer of Australasian Robotics and Automation Association (2017 - 2019)
Co-chair of 2019 AGRICONTROL conference, held in Sydney from 4-6 December 2019
Local chair for the 2013 Australasian Conference on Robotics and Automation, held at UNSW in December 2013
Secretary of Australasian Robotics and Automation Association (2013 - 2016)
Organiser of the workshop on Recent Advances in Agricultural Robotics, co-located with the 13th International Conference on Intelligent Autonomous Systems (2013)
IEEE RAS Agricultural Robotics and Automation technical committee member (2014 - 2022)
IEEE Robotics and Automation Society member (2011 - 2022)
IEEE Member (2008 - 2022)
IFAC 8.1 Technical Committee on Control in Agriculture member (2019 - 2021)

My Research Supervision

Areas of supervision

I am not seeking further students.

Currently supervising

Current Students and Topics

Ph.D

Mengying Hu: Canopy detection for apple spraying robot

Completed Students and Topics

Ph.D

Annie Xu Wang: Flower detection for apple spraying robot
Bolai Xin: 3D grape bunch reconstruction
Julie Tang: Vine bunch maturity estimation using multispectral cameras
Masami Hirayama: Autonomous operation of bulldozers for ground levelling (co-supervised with Jay Katupitiya and Jose Guivant as primary supervisors)
Scarlett Liu: Yield Estimation in Viticulture by Digital Image Processing

M.Res

Cameron Stewart: Improving estimation of distributions (co-supervised with Alan Blair as primary supervisor)

BE Thesis. Number graduated: 98.

Joshua Purnell: Design of an actuated towed underwater glider (with Ocius)
Dylan Sanusi-Goh: Mapping road condition from bus sensor data
Raghav Hariharan: Improving row detection in horticultural crops
Olivia Yem: Apple fruitlet recognition
Rowan Ramamurthy: Autonomous 3D reconstruction of towers (with Emesent)
Gilbert Rayner: Green on green weed detection
Michael Kedar: Grape bunch reconstruction from MicroCT scans
Timothy Ryan: Post and tree detection from LiDAR
Henry Phung: GPU speed-ups for bulldozer planning algorithm
Sophia Lin: User interface for an app for grapevine dieback detection
William Chen: Improving the accuracy of plane SLAM
Patrick Moulds: Robot grasp training by gesture recognition
Dominic Daners: Design and construction of an swerve drive platform
Liangde Li (with Claude Sammut): Robocup - GPU processing
Oliver Richards (with Claude Sammut): Robocup - semantic tracking of objects
Leandro Hirai: GANs for augmenting training data for image segmentation
Rebecca Schacht: Task allocation for multi-robot exploration (co-supervised with CSIRO)
Elliott Smith: RRTs for automated bulldozer path planning
Anthony Feizi-Sobbi: UAV real-time image processing
Edward Thomson: UAV real-time image processing
Kenji Brameld (with Claude Sammut): Robocup - fall recovery
Adam Tizzone: Localising UAVs from onboard sensors
Marcus Swift: Bulldozer path planning in constrained situations
Aaron Spyrakis: App for delivery drivers
Sarah Howells: Image processing for vine row detection
James Sloan: Speeding up neural networks on quantum computers
Yiwei Han: 3D Reconstruction of Grape Bunch Rachis
Gabriel Low: Grape Detection
Luke Millstead: A Fast Method for the Calculation of Stomatal Conductance
Benjamen Lee: Implementation of a Storage Optimised and Flexible Blockchain
Carson Crosse: 3D Model of Grape Rachis Structure from Video
Albert Chau: Vertical farming: a review
Linda Wong: Investigating the Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Problem via Quantum Computing
Jabez Wilson: Visual Inertial Odometry on an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Scott Bennett: Using Machine Learning to Investigate Trends in the Dispensing of Dementia Medication
Kevin Muliady: Using Convolutional Neural Networks to detect the shoreline in beach images
Sean Thompson: Narrative Generation
Rafael Lawrence: Impact of visual feedback on chord typing
Tom Wyatt: Rural Mobile Networks
Nicola Gibson: Real-time Filtering of LiDAR Point Clouds Corrupted by Rain
James Murdoch: Reinforcement learning for optimal control of a Reverse Osmosis plant
Harsh Patel: Automated Image Stitching and Classification for Vine Water Stress (VWS) Project
Phillip van Kerk Oerle: Towards Better Grape Yield Estimation using Convolutional Neural Networks
Joseph Salim: Development of a Novel Sensor to Detect Incipient Slip and Estimate Coefficient of Friction
Alex Gan: Location Prediction using a region-based Hidden Markov Model
Ian Stuart Bartlett: Training of Conditional Restricted Boltzmann Machines on a Quantum Computer
William Wu: Database for Collating Indoor Localisation Records
Faris Azhari: Particle Filter Methods for Indoor Localisation using Mobile Phones and Bluetooth Beacons
Drew Wiseham: Yield Estimation in Viticulture
Zhen (Steven) Liu: Berry Diameter Tracking
Gaurav Awadhwal: Improved Camera and GPS Data Capture for Yield Estimation
Christopher Squire: Improving Point Cloud Rendering with Skip-octrees
Amogh Sarda: Natural Language Processing for Predicting Self-harm in Online Forums
Laura Hodges: Agent-based Task Allocation and Exploration for UAVs
Lalitha Katupitiya: Centralised UAV Coordination
Fredrik Westling: Mobile Phone Control of a Quadcopter
Cameron Stewart: Deep Neural Networks on the D-Wave 2X Quantum Computer
Kevin Lerdwichagul: AI for Starcraft
Shirleen Sharma: Believability of Conversational Agents in Role Playing Games
Cadmus To: Pose Estimation for Grasping Unknown Objects
Sang-woo Park: UGV Manipulator Design
Daniel Ly: 3D Object Pose Tracking using a Kinect Sensor
Karthik Jayaraman: Indoor Localisation in a Hospital Environment using Bluetooth Low Energy Tags
Terence Chong: Generation of Virtual Formula SAE Racing Environments using Road Scanning Systems
Thomas Wijaya: Geometric Consistency and Optimisation for Map Merging
Phillip Moser: Automated Sorting System for a Grape Harvester
Will Russell: Inducing Cow Flow in Grazing AMS Dairy Farms Using Audio Stimuli
Nathan Adler: Development and Assessment of a Low Cost CORS-linked Single Frequency GPS for RTK Applications
Rory San Miguel: Design of a High Precision UAV GPS
Andrew McGill: Development of a Smartphone Application to assist in Viticulture Data Collection
Sam Cassisi: Hospital Patient Tracking for Infectious Disease Control
Zhu (Arthur) Lie: Mobile Phone Control of a Mobile Robot
Sudeep Singh: Automated Image capture for Grape Vine Inspection
Samuel Binns: Robot Manipulator Grasp Planning
Lindsay Folkard: Visual Based Egomotion Detection
Stephanie Morris: Inflorescence Counting using Image Processing
Tanawat Sarnvanichpitak: Defect Detection in a Coat Hanger Manufacturing Line
Julie Tang: Automated Screw Detection and Removal for Robotic Disassembly
Ian Craig: Personal Location Prediction from Automatic Region Clustering using Mobile Devices
Russell Harding: Mobile Phone Control of a Mobile Robot
Letty Liu: Inflorescence Flower Counting by Image Processing
Dan Padilha: Implementation of NP-Hard problems on the D-wave 2 quantum computer
Samuel Marden: Automated Yield Forecasting in a Vineyard using an Unmanned Ground Vehicle and Computer Vision
Aditya Pradiptadarma: Design and Evaluation of a Flexible Vineyard Management System
Donger (Donald) Luo: Simulation Modelling of a Quadbike to Help Improve Stability
Andrew Bastoli: Dynamic Memory Management of a Point Cloud Viewer
Chloe Boyton: Automatic Generation of Aircraft Loading Schedules
Chi Quan (Calvin) Tan: Plane Extraction and Visualisation in 3D Poinbt Clouds
Kent Tran: Real Time Visualisation of Large Point Cloud Datasets
Maximilien Stevens: 3D Map Merging of Campus Scale Datasets
Sheng Jie Teo: Robot Controlled Pan and Tilt DSLR Camera over the Internet
Tom Lindeback: Planning with Multiple Constraints
Brett Seton: An Investigation into Path Planning Techniques
Dylan Campbell: The Kidnapped Robot Problem: Detection and Recovery
Paul Ashley: Development of Smartphone Applications in Viticulture
John Goward: Estimating and Predicting Carbon Sequestered in a Vineyard with Soil Surveys, Spatial Data & GIS Management
Cameron Joannidis (co-supervised with Steve Cossell): Implementation of an Audio Interface for the UNSW Unmanned Ground Vehicle
Derek Taprell: Development of a Module Base Station System for a Micro Aerial Vehicle & The Investigation of a Laser Stripe Distance Sensor for a Micro Aerial Vehicle

Taste of Research

Finn Russell: Improved smartphone apps for vine trunk disease detection
Yingtao Zhang: Apple flower counting
Aaron (Shanda) Su: An online system for vine flower counting
Luke Millstead: Microscope image processing
Faris Azhari: Indoor Localisation using Mobile Phones and Bluetooth Beacons
Yiwei Han: Mobile Computer Vision for Yield Estimation in Viticulture
Zhihao Zhang: Georeferencing Vineyard Imagery Without GPS
Xin Dong: Google 'Street View' for the Vineyard
Julie Tang: Long Term Autonomy for Image Collection in a Vineyard using a Mobile Robot
Letty Liu: Inflorescence Flower Counting by Image Processing

My Teaching

Lectures / Courses previously taught

MTRN4230 Robotics (course convenor and lecturer)
MTRN2500 (course convenor and lecturer)
MMAN3000 Professional Engineering and Communication (lecturer)
Previously: MMAN1300 (lecturer), MMAN2300 (lecturer), MTRN2500 (tutor), MTRN3500 (tutor), MTRN3020 (tutor), GSOE9400 (tutor), MMAN3200 (tutor), MTRN3100 (tutor), MTRN9222 (tutor), SENG3111 (tutor)

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