One of Durrant-Whyte's autonomous robots, which is used for counting cuttlefish on the ocean floor.
Credit: Hugh Durrant-Whyte
Hugh Durrant-Whyte, an engineer at the University of Sydney, won one of the awards for his critical role in raising the profile of Australian robotics.
Credit: ATSE
John Hopwood, a molecular geneticist with the Children, Youth and Women's Health Service in Adelaide, South Australia, has developed drugs for two well known lysosomal diseases - Hunter's Syndrome and Maroteaux-Lamy Syndrome.
Credit: ATSE
SYDNEY: Robotic bushfire-fighting helicopters and treatments for a debilitating family of diseases caused by faulty proteins are some of the winners of this year's Clunies Ross Awards.
The awards, given out by the Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, based in Melbourne, recognise scientists and engineers who have made a substantial economic, environmental or social difference to Australia.
The 2009 awards were presented last night at a glamorous black-tie dinner held at a converted wharf venue on Sydney Harbour.
Robots in the outback
Hugh Durrant-Whyte, an engineer at the University of Sydney, won one of the awards for his critical role in raising the profile of Australian robotics.
Durrant-Whyte works on 'field robotics' – large-scale robots working in remote, outdoor environments. He has pioneered research into robotic perception and navigation, with innovations allowing robots to sense, interpret, and interact with the environment.
"Australia is the ideal place to do field robotics. It's big, empty, has a small population, it relies a lot on its primary industries," he said. "If you were to pick one place in the world to do field robotics, it would be here."
Whilst robots have long been employed for manufacturing or military purposes, Durrant-Whyte has worked tirelessly to find further uses for them in an Australian context. Focussing on applications that are "dull, dirty, and dangerous," he is creating bushfire-fighting flying machines and precision crop-weeding robots – as well as others to help with mining and construction.
His robots already go where no human can, or wants, to go. They're busy mining for Rio Tinto and counting cuttlefish on the depths of the ocean floor.
Lysosomal storage disorders
Another award went to research into treatments for lysosomal storage disorders, a debilitating family of diseases that affect up to 1 in 1,000 people.
John Hopwood, a molecular geneticist with the Children, Youth and Women's Health Service in Adelaide, South Australia, has developed drugs for two well known lysosomal diseases - Hunter's syndrome and Maroteaux-Lamy syndrome.
Both these diseases cause progressive and life-limiting illness, with symptoms including reduced height; an enlarged spleen, abdomen, head and tongue; breathing problems; vision and hearing loss; and greater risk of heart disease.
Hopwood's treatments have improved the quality of life for sufferers worldwide. "It's the greatest kick, that biomedical research has been recognised as a worthwhile recipient of this award," said Hopwood.
His team discovered that lysosomal storage disorders are caused by genes, which produce faulty proteins.
Lysosomes are compartments inside cells, which recycle used-up cell components for re-use elsewhere in the cell. When the lysosome is faulty, materials that should be released for re-use, build-up inside it and cause it to swell until it fills the entire cell.
Hopwood devised a way of producing the correct proteins in a lab, which can be purified and infused into a patient's bloodstream, replacing the body's own dysfunctional proteins.
He is also currently developing a screening technique for newborn babies, which he hopes will allow patients to be diagnosed and treated before irreversible symptoms appear.
Reliable wind power
Alan Langworthy, managing director of Powercorp, in Darwin, also took an award for his contributions to renewable energy in remote communities.
In rural areas, isolated grids can black out if connected to a renewable energy source such as a wind generator, due to fluctuations in supply.
Langworthy developed a grid control mechanism that smooths out these fluctuations, allowing renewable energy sources to be used more reliably. His systems are now delivering reliable power in the Australian outback, of a quality equal to the power supply of large cities.
Other winners are leading Australia in fields such as mobile phone technology, overcoming Internet congestion, and mineral floatation processes.
THE FULL LIST OF 2009 ATSE CLUNIES ROSS WINNERS
• Alan Langworthy, Powercorp, Darwin – for remote renewable power
• Chris Nicol, Embedded Systems NICTA, Sydney – for mobile phone technologies
• Hugh Durrant-Whyte, University of Sydney, Sydney – for research into field robotics for Australian conditions
• John Hopwood, Children, Youth and Women's Health Service, Adelaide – for research into lysosomal disease treatments
• Zigmantas Budrikis, Antonio Cantoni and John Hullet, Western Australian Telecommunications Research Institute, Perth – for solving broadband Internet congestion problems
• John Ralston, University of South Australia, Adelaide – for mineral flotation processes (Lifetime Contribution Award)
