Professor John Billingsley
MA (Cambridge) PhD (Cambridge)
CEng CPEng FIET FIEAust SenMIEEE
Faculty of Engineering and Surveying
University of Southern Queensland
Toowoomba, QLD Australia
General Information
- John Billingsley graduated in mathematics and in electrical
engineering
from Cambridge University
in
1960. After four years working in the aircraft industry on autopilot
design,
he returned to Cambridge and gained a PhD in control theory in 1968.
- He led research teams in Cambridge University developing early
'mechatronic'
systems including a laser phototypesetting system which was the
precursor
of the laser printer and the 'acoustic telescope' which enabled sound
source
distributions to be visualised (this was used in the development of jet
engines with reduced noise.)
- He moved to Portsmouth
Polytechnic
in 1976, where he founded the Robotics Research Group. The results of
the Walking
Robot unit led to the foundation of Portech Ltd, which for many
years
supplied systems to the nuclear industry for inspection and repair of
containment
vessels. Other units in the Robotics group have substantial funding for
research in quality control and in the integration of manufacturing
systems
with the aid of transputers.
- In April 1992 he took up a Chair of Engineering at the University
of
Southern
Queensland in Toowoomba. His primary concern is mechatronics research
and
he is Director of Technology Research of the National
Centre for Engineering in Agriculture.
- Three prototypes of new wall-climbing robots have been completed
at
USQ,
while research on a fourth included development of a novel proportional
pneumatic valve. Robug 4 has been acquired for further research into legged robots.
- A substantial project in the NCEA received Cotton Research
funding and
concerned the guidance of a tractor by machine vision for very accurate
following of rows of crop. Prototypes of the system went on trial
on farms in Queensland, New South Wales and the USA for several years.
In production
form, it was marketed (without great success) by a major US tractor
manufacturer, CASE
IH.
Parts of the system, however, became the successful basis for
interfaces between GPS guidance systems and the automatic steering of
the tractor. Novel techniques are bein exploited in a further
commercial project. Other computer-vision projects have included
an
automatic system for
the grading of broccoli heads, systems for discriminating between
animal species for controlling access to water, systems for precision
counting and location of macadamia nuts for
varietal trials and several other systems for assessing produce quality.
- He has taken a close interest in the presentation of engineering
challenges
to young engineers over many years. He has promoted the Micromouse
robot
maze contest around the world since 1980. With Mark Phythian he simplified the Micromouse contest to become the Bilby
contest, appealing to eleventh and twelfth year school contestants.
- He has contrived machines which have been exhibited in the
'Palais
de la Decouverte' in Paris, in the 'Exploratorium'
at San Fransisco and in the Institue of Contemporary Arts in London, hands-on experiments to stimulate an interest in
control.
Several robots resulting from projects with which he was associated are
now on show in the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
- He was awarded an Erskine Fellowship by the University of Canterbury, New Zealand, where he spent two months February and March 2003.
- In December 2006 he received an achievement medal from the Institution of Engineering and Technology, London.
2007 Teaching
- [ENG 3905] Mechatronics Practice Unit
- [ENG 4406] Robotics and Machine Vision
- [ENG 8001] Research Methodology
Research Interests
- Control Theory and Practical Systems
- Robotics
- Mechatronics
CV with publications.
(The last few years' crop includes several conference publications,
journal
publications and series
editor including a book or three.
Another book was published in May 2006, a further edited book is due in October..
Editorial board of a journal.
Meanwhile there is some light reading below)
Other items of interest:
The thirteenth international conferrence on Mechatronics and Machine
Vision
in Practice was held in Toowoomba - click on a link below to see some
details
of this and earlier conferences. This year's conference is in
Xiamen, southern China.
I have also been developing Jollies - Javascript On-Line Learning
Interactive Environment for Simulation.
Take a look at http://www.jollies.com
- but beware of other sites with Jollies in the name!
Perth,
Western Australia
Chiang
Mai, Thailand
Conference: Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice,Hervey Bay,
September
2000.
Conference:
Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice, Toowoomba 1997
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Document Source - original
Last updated - January 2007
Contact : John Billingsley / johnbill@usq.edu.au
