The Centre for Agricultural Engineering delivers applied, practical and profitable research solutions that strengthen agricultural productivity and address environmental management challenges in Australia and overseas.
The Centre’s research focus includes irrigation and water resources management; farming systems innovation; energy efficiency and renewable energy; bioresource recycling; robotics, automation and machine vision.
For over 30 years, the Centre has been working with industry to develop more sustainable and efficient ways of using water sustainably to grow crops and support the environment. Irrigation research is conducted across a wide variety of agricultural industries nationally and internationally.
Title: Automated Broad-acre Irrigation Optimisation
Leader: Associate Professor Joseph Foley
Project Team: Dr Malcolm Gillies | Dr Alison McCarthy | Dr Simon Kelderman | Ralph Shippam, TIA, University of Tasmania
Project Partners: Cotton Research and Development Corporation | Dairy Australia
Funding Body: Australian Government, Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry
UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering is completing research on broad-acre surface irrigation, large centre pivots and lateral moves, to automatically optimise irrigation events with novel technologies developed by our Irrigation & Water Management team.
Title: Dry Season Irrigation for Marginal and Tenant Farmers
Leader: Erik Schmidt
Project Team: Michael Scobie | Lidya Agustina | Dr Jochen Eberhard | Ralph Shippam | Rupak Sarkar, UBKV (North Bengal Agricultural University) | Mohammad Mainuddin, CSIRO | Santosh Mali, Indian Council for Ag Research
Project Partners: IWMI, International Water Management Institute
Funding Body: ACIAR Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research
UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering is supporting irrigation development in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, which include the Nepal Tarai, Bihar and West Bengal regions, and is one of the most densely populated, poverty-stricken belts in South Asia. The Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research is investing in research aiming to improve the livelihood of women, marginal and tenant farmers in the Eastern Gangetic Plains, through improved water use and increased dry season agricultural production.
Title: Direct one-step measurement of broad-acre crop evapotranspiration
Leader: Dr Simon Kelderman
Project Team: Associate Professor Joseph Foley | Associate Professor Nigel Hancock
Project Partners: CRDC, Cotton Research and Development Corporation
Funding Body: CRDC, Cotton Research and Development Corporation
Direct one-step measurement of water vapour flux from broad-acre irrigated cropping is a focus research area for the Irrigation & Water Management team at UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering. The Cotton Research and Development Corporation is supporting this post-doctoral work of Dr Simon Kelderman to further refine sensor selection and deploy his novel system in commercial fields to allow industry to obtain direct crop evapotranspiration rates.
Title: Investigating alternative evaporation mitigation technologies
Leader: Michael Scobie
Project Team: Erik Schmidt | Dr Pamela Pittaway | Dr Guangnan Chen
Project Partners: Former Queensland Department of Resources, now Queensland Department Regional Development, Manufacturing and Water | CRDC, Cotton Research and Development Corporation | Gwydir Valley Irrigators Association
Funding Body: CRDC, Cotton Research and Development Corporation
The largest loss of water in the northern Murray-Darling Basin is the evaporation and seepage from on-farm water storages, and the Irrigation & Water Management team at UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering remains keenly focussed on this “wicked” problem. The Cotton Research and Development Corporation is supporting this work to determine alternatives and further refine real commercial options for regional water managers across Australia to reduce this stored water loss.
The research team delivers outcomes by combining agricultural sciences, agricultural inputs and practices, agronomic production databases and precision agriculture technologies to efficiently manage agronomic and livestock production systems.
Title: Cassowary Coast Reef Smart Farming
Leader: Debra Telford | UniSQ leader: Professor Bernard Schroeder
Project Team: Associate Professor Troy Jensen | Bruen Smith | Debra Telford | Peter Becke | Maria Solis | Renee Cluff (CANEGROWERS Innisfail) | Dr John Pickering | Sam Moore (Evidn)
Project Partners: CANEGROWERS (Innisfail) | Evidn
Funding Body: Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) through Terrain NRM
UniSQ Centre for Agricultural Engineering is partnering with CANEGROWERS Innisfail and Evidn Pty Ltd in a GBRF-funded project that aims to improve nitrogen-use efficiency (NUE) in sugarcane production systems.
Title: Automated Small Plot Cotton Trial Picker
Leader: Associate Professor Troy Jensen
Project Team: Bruen Smith | Tim Johnson
Project Partners: Cotton Seed Distributors (CSD) | CSIRO
Funding Body: CSD | CSIRO
The purpose of this project is to develop a new automated on-board weighing system for a commercial 4 row seed cotton picker. The system will be developed for the existing JD7760/CP690 pickers.
Title: Integrating soil and water management in vegetable production in Laos and Cambodia
Leader: Dr Alice Melland
Project Team: Dr Jochen Eberhard | Erik Schmidt
Project Partners: Cambodia Agricultural Research and Development Institute | Clean Agriculture Development Centre | National Agriculture and Forestry Research Institute | National University of Laos | University of Tasmania
Funding Body: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR)
This project aimed to improve soil and irrigation water management in Laos and Cambodia to achieve sustainably improved vegetable yields and households’ economies. Laos and Cambodia are developing economies seeking to improve crop yields for domestic consumption and export markets.
The research team explores alternative energy, waste recovery and energy efficiency options that enable industry to generate self-sustaining energy systems and ultimately cater for their own energy needs. A key area of research focus is the conversion of agro-industrial waste into profitable clean energy with a focus on biogas and biofertilisers from organic waste.
Leader: Professor Bernadette McCabe
Project Team: Dr Diogenes Antille (CSIRO) | Dr Serhiy Marchuk | Dr Jochen Eberhard | Ms Seonmi
Project Partners: Pyrocal Pty Ltd | Logan City Council | Urban Utilities | Queensland Department of Environment and Science | University of Technology Sydney | University of Melbourne
Funding Body: Australian Research Council as part of its Industrial Transformation Research Hubs scheme
The University is a key partner in the NiCE Hub and is working with water utilities, Government departments, energy and resource companies, agricultural and horticultural businesses and local councils to investigate the value of biofertiliser from a range of organic waste streams.
Title: Pilot to Paddock (P2) Innovative on-farm water, energy and nutrient technologies and practices for Australian Dairy, Egg, Pork and Cropping industries
Leader: Dr Stephan Tait
Project Team: Dr Peter Harris | Dr Serhiy Marchuk | Torben Grell | Professor Bernadette McCabe
Project Partners: University of Queensland | University of Western Australia | Agriculture Victoria | Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Queensland | Scolexia Consulting
Funding Body: Australian Government Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment as part of its Smart Farming Initiative program.
The University is taking the technical lead in this nationwide research, which is focused on taking manure from various agricultural industries and finding the best ways to turn it into valuable products that can be re-used back on farm.
Leader: Professor Bernadette McCabe
Project Team: Dr Peter Harris | Lee Williams
Project Partners: Toowoomba and Surat Basin Enterprise | Toowoomba Regional Council
Funding Body: Fight Food Waste CRC
Toowoomba is home to significant agricultural and food processing sectors and the project offers a unique opportunity to explore existing technologies to produce an income stream from waste. The project aims to map the quantity and quality of waste products that end up in local landfill and explore technologies available for converting it into high-value products such as energy and solid or liquid fertiliser.
Title: Pilot-scale production of granulated organomineral fertilisers on the Queensland Darling Downs
Leader: Professor Bernadette McCabe
Project Team: Dr Diogenes Antille (CSIRO) | Dr Serhiy Marchuk
Project Partners: Queensland State Government | Fight Food Waste CRC
Funding Body: Waste to Biofutures Fund, Queensland State Government
Funding from the Waste to Biofutures Fund has enabled the procurement of a lab scale granulator to develop specifications for novel, enhanced-biofertilisers that meet the requirements for field application using standard farm equipment (physical properties) and nutritional needs of crops (chemical composition).
The team develops advanced robotic sensing technologies to enhance autonomy in crop production, biosecurity and animal welfare on-farm, with aims for on-farm adoption in the commercial farm conditions of today. The team also provides leadership on the integration of sensing systems with agricultural robotics into the future.
Title: Machine vision monitoring of chicken welfare
Leader: Dr Cheryl McCarthy
Project Team: Dr Derek Long
Project Partners: AgriFutures Chicken Meat Program
Funding Body: AgriFutures
Technologies to estimate weight, uniformity and behaviours of meat chickens are being developed by UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering and a commercial partner, which will assist farmers to meet production goals as well as monitoring chicken welfare.
Title: Moon to Mars initiative
Leader: Dr Cheryl McCarthy
Project Team: Dr Cassy Percy | Professor Peter Brett
Project Partners: Australian Space Agency
Funding Body: Australian Space Agency through its Moon to Mars Demonstrator Feasibility Grant
UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering is developing novel machine vision technologies to monitor food plants on extended space missions and has recently completed a project for the Australian Space Agency.
Title: Time motion analysis in the deboning of beef carcasses
Leader: Professor Peter Brett
Project Team: Basem Aly
Project Partners: Oakey Beef Exports
Funding Body: Oakey Beef Exports
Video analysis has been undertaken of the time taken for skilled butchers to achieve specific cuts from a beef carcass on a production line. The outcomes of this project will allow Oakey Beef Exports to evaluate the many improvements made on the production line since the 1960s and maintain a sustainable and competitive position in the meat processing market.
Title: Machine vision for improved pest management in cotton
Leader: Dr Alison McCarthy
Project Team: Dr Derek Long | Yiyi Xiong
Project Partners: Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries
Funding Body: Cotton Research and Development Corporation
UniSQ’s Centre for Agricultural Engineering has developed an app ‘PestDetect’ that uses the smartphone’s camera and image analysis to detect and count silverleaf whitefly, leading to improved insect sampling in cotton crops. A follow-on project is targeting further priority crop attributes for crop protection.
