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
Sch: Mech & Manufacturing Eng
Mark is a 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 are doing. His research interests are focussed around digital agriculture and digital viticulture and extend to the following topics:
- 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
Phone
+61 2 9385 4230
E-mail
Location
J17 Ainsworth Building (Mechanical Engineering) 510G (inside the large staff and postgraduate student area on level 5) - call x54230 for entry.
- Publications
- Awards
- Grants
- Media
Publications
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, 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)
Grants
Industry Engagement
- Consultant to NXTGen Industries for "Review of mechanical, electircal 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.