NICTA signs software licensing deal for Smart Cars research
NICTA, Australia’s Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Research Centre of Excellence, has signed a software licensing deal with Sydney road infrastructure company Pavement Management Services (PMS).
The three-year agreement will enable Pavement Management Services to rapidly commercialise research from NICTA’s Smart Cars Project, which is based at NICTA’s Canberra Research Laboratory.
The Smart Cars project uses computer technology, particularly image analysis, to enable a safer driving experience. The goal of the project is to provide input to the driver about road conditions, obstacles and potential hazards, letting the driver retain control of the vehicle while benefiting from alerts from the computer system.
Those same NICTA-developed techniques are to be used by Pavement Management Services to automatically detect, recognise and geographically pinpoint road signs for highway and pavement management, using video-footage shot from survey vehicles.
“We anticipate commercialising the software from NICTA’s Smart Cars project, which uses advanced recognition technology and algorithms, within 12 months” Pavement Management Services CEO John Yeaman said.
“The road sign system using NICTA recognition technology is about five times faster than using humans to view the footage and log reports, and a quantum leap in accuracy,” Mr Yeaman said.
“We are very excited to be working with Pavement Management Services and anticipate the relationship will help us to further our research in this area,” NICTA Researcher and Smart Cars Project Leader Dr Lars Petersson said.
The NICTA’s Smart Cars project will be demonstrated as part of the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) exhibit to VIPs at the opening of the new Canberra Research Laboratory on 12 December 2007. The other five projects include:
• InterfereX - aims to develop an advanced modem for an OFDMA-based 4G mobile wireless system using patent-pending receiver techniques to double receiver sensitivity. This will result in substantial improvements in wireless network coverage and data capacity throughput.
• Body Area Networks of Embedded Systems for Humans (BANESH) - examines the use of small inexpensive sensors, such as micro processors and miniature transmitters, to interpret data from small, smart devices used for biometric monitoring into useful information.
• Statistical Machine Learning (SML) – NICTA’s SML researchers are developing methods for creating intelligent devices with the ability to learn. The ultimate aim is to build intelligent systems that adapt to user needs without needing a programmer to encode rules about how to act.
• Medical Imaging – The Automated Anatomical Structure Extraction for Diagnosis and Population Norms Project uses mathematical modelling to create and analyse 3D images of the hippocampus region of the brain to help diagnose conditions such as Alzheimer's, epilepsy and schizophrenia.
• EGovernment - addresses the business and technology needs of federal and state governments with a particular focus on interoperability and business alignment. A range of software infrastructure technologies (including software architecture design; project scoping, sizing, and estimation; and performance assessment) are currently being developed and deployed across multiple agencies in major business transformation projects.
Document(s): 
NICTA signs software licensing deal for Smart Car research (pdf, 26KB)
Contact: Kelly Mills
Phone: +61 2 8374 5489
Email: kelly.mills@nicta.com.au
