Breakfast with a side of future vision

From managing water scarcity to addressing antibiotic resistance, five leading researchers from Melbourne School of Engineering put forward their challenges and visions for a more sustainable future as part of the World Engineers Convention held in Melbourne 20-22 November 2019.

The researchers took to the stage with a lightning round of presentations during a breakfast hosted by the University of Melbourne, held as part of the three-day convention that brought together 3000 engineers, students and industry leaders from around the globe.

The breakfast was more intimate, with 200 guests attending including international convention delegates, industry partners and alumni.

The presentations reflected both the University’s areas of expertise and the convention’s theme of ‘Engineering a Sustainable World: The Next 100 Years’. Topics included climate change, land use planning, autonomous systems, tissue engineering and artificial intelligence (AI).

Water security

Professor Mike Stewardson, who leads the University’s Water, Environment and Agriculture Program, spoke about the ‘double whammy’ of climate change on water resources.

Dry conditions mean not only less rain, but also less run-off from the rain, he says. The resulting decline in water resources is bringing new challenges and the existence of some water-reliant industries, such as dairy farming, are under pressure. Water scarcity is also affecting cities, with demand rising at the same time as less water is available.

Professor Mike Stewardson with Old Quad building in background
Professor Mike Stewardson leads the University's Water, Environment and Agriculture program

“The worst-case scenario is that Melbourne will need a new water supply by 2030,” Professor Stewardson says. “And we are tracking on that worst-case scenario. We’re also seeing fish kills in our rivers, and increasing conflict and a lack of trust in our water management agencies.”

Professor Stewardson says the University is developing water-planning tools to help think through the impacts of climate change on water resource systems, catchments and water use behaviour. The aim is to bring an evidence-based approach to managing water and to address future vulnerabilities.

This includes better management of environmental water allocations.

“You might think this would be an ecological problem, but there is a big role for engineers in this space as well,” he says. “We have put engineering thinking and modelling tools to the task.

“We are monitoring responses from the use of that water, building decision-making tools and ramping up as quickly as we can the practice of managing what is a multi-billion dollar resource to get the greatest environmental benefits.”

Urban development

Linking into the issue of planning, Dr Soheil Sabri discussed the urban modelling Digital Twin project he is working on as part of the University’s Centre for Spatial Data Infrastructures and Land Administration (CSDILA).

The Digital Twin combines data from diverse sources to create a virtual image of buildings, vegetation, open spaces and infrastructure and the complex interconnections in urban environments. Its first major application is in the redevelopment of Melbourne’s bayside location, Fishermans Bend, where the University will build its new engineering and design campus.

Dr Soheil Sabri presenting at podium at WEC Breakfast
Dr Soheil Sabri explains CSDILA's Digital Twin project at WEC

This former industrial area covers 480 hectares and is expected to house 80,000 residents and provide 80,000 jobs by 2050. Fishermans Bend is the largest urban renewal  project in Australia.

Dr Sabri says data about infrastructure at Fishermans Bend is fragmented across many different industries and government agencies. The Digital Twin is bringing this diverse data together to create 3D and 4D models that even include floor-by-floor visualisations of existing and proposed buildings.

The Digital Twin can also run scenarios for a range of climatic conditions, energy use, public transport, people movement, economic activity and overall sustainability. The goal is to support decision-makers to consider how individual actions could impact the redevelopment of the precinct as a whole.

But future developments could be vastly different. Dr Sabri says China is already exploring underground development and settlements, and there is a need to understand the implications of this for Australia.

Engineering tissue replacements

As Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Professor Andrea O’Connor spoke about the role of engineering in replacing functional human tissue, such as in the case of orthopaedic implants in hip and knee reconstructions.

She says with an ageing population there is increasing demand for these implants, and even for second or third reconstructions. However, patient outcomes from replacement implants are “not great”.

Professor Andrea O'Connor presenting at podium at WEC Breakfast
Head of the Department of Biomedical Engineering Professor Andrea O'Connor

“So there is a significant challenge for engineers to make longer-lasting, better, more functional implant and tissue replacements,” Professor O’Connor says.

New strategies are also needed to combat infection related to implants, which could prove life-threatening, given increasing levels of bacterial resistance to antibiotics. “We are developing nanomaterial coatings and composites that can be used on implants to address that,” she said.

Professor O’Connor’s vision includes the development of new, functional tissue implants. Replacements for the functions of the pancreas are a current target of research, to help diabetic patients with a failing pancreas to live well.

Personalised medicine incorporating AI and data is another emerging industry to respond to individual patient needs. But personalised medicine could bring with it economic challenges, Professor O’Connor says. Cost-effective engineering solutions are needed to provide affordable and equitable access to this type of healthcare.

Smart labour

Director of the University of Melbourne’s Vasey Flight Laboratory Dr Airlie Chapman outlined the challenges of her research in autonomous systems including robotics and autonomous land and aerial vehicles (AEVs).

“We are fairly good at generating systems to work independently,” she says. “But more and more we’re starting to interconnect these together, over information exchange networks.”

Airlie Chapman holding up a small drone
Dr Airlie Chapman, Director of the University's Vasey Laboratory

Dr Chapman’s challenge is to use the information networks to create collaborations involving many independent technological components, such as drones, to achieve the desired output, without relying on people to manage each component separately.

She highlights precision agriculture as a specific area of application for autonomous systems.

“We are at a turning point in Australia where, for the first time in 100 years, we are now producing less from the land than we were before, and it is predicted that in the next 10 years 50 per cent of Australian farmers will retire.

“We will have a huge deficit in our workforce, so having some autonomous capability to help support our farmers is critical.”

Dr Chapman’s vision includes autonomous systems as the default data-gatherers, exploring places of limited access, such as deep water, underground sites and the upper layers of the stratosphere.

Autonomous systems also have a crucial role in rapidly changing scenarios, for instance, in disaster management, during earthquakes and bushfires, which are predicted to become more common as a result of climate change.

“It’s going to be increasingly important to have information that we can process quickly and make the best decisions,” Dr Chapman adds.

AI ethics

For Associate Professor Tim Miller from the School of Computing and Information Systems, the challenge is not in the development of autonomous or smart systems, but in getting people to accept them.

The slow uptake of AI comes down to ethics and trust he says, summarising the issues as FAT, or Fairness, Accountability and Transparency.

Tim Miller presenting at podium at WEC
Associate Professor Tim Miller presenting on AI ethics

Fairness, for example, relates to identifying biases in the data used to train AI systems, such as historical data used to shortlist candidates in male-dominated jobs.

Accountability includes the ability of AI systems to explain their decisions.

Transparency relates to governance processes around how artificial intelligence is developed and used, including the handling of this data.

To address these issues and develop new approaches, the University of Melbourne will launch the Centre for AI and Digital Ethics in 2020, he says. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, the centre will bring together researchers from MSE, Melbourne Law School and the Faculty of Arts.

Associate Professor Miller’s long-term view is that research into AI and FAT issues will become redundant, as the practices to address them become embedded into every data-driven and AI operation. “Because that’s just the way you do business,” he says.

The breakfast presentations highlight MSE’s diverse research and cross-disciplinary collaborations to deliver solutions that contribute to the long-term sustainability of society.

Autonomous networks that help assess climate impacts, energy modelling across urban precincts, and the use of biomedical ethics to inform AI-related discussions on personal data all demonstrate the value of an interconnected and industry focused approach.

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