Adjunct Senior Lecturer
Dr Mark Whitty
- 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
Engineering
Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
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 full time:
- 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
E-mail
- Publications
- Grants
- Awards
- Research Activities
- Teaching and Supervision
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.
- 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, 4th 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)
- 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 - )
- IEEE Robotics and Automation Society member (2011 - )
- IEEE Member (2008 - )
- IFAC 8.1 Technical Committee on Control in Agriculture member (2019 - )
Lectures / Courses recently 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)