Quantum Link Verification
With the upsurge of data storage migration to public cloud environments the need to ensure data confidentiality and integrity becomes increasingly critical. Fibre optic, encryption and post-quantum encryption are various approaches to data protection but these have limitations.
Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed an approach to verify the physical security of fibre optic cabling using quantum technology. The cable can be continuously monitored and, if compromised, data transmission halted.
Quantum Link Verification relies on well-documented, tested and verified scientific concepts and can be demonstrated using off-the-shelf hardware. The next step is a lab-based demonstration to show the proof of concept for integration within classical communication networks.
In the longer term, the technology can be applied to emerging communications links, for example free space optical links using LEO satellite networks.
Key features:
- Verify fibre optic communications links using ‘unspoofable’ quantum technology
- Backwards compatible with fibre infrastructure
- Uses commercial off-the-shelf components.
Automated Topology Builder
Accurate force field parameters for molecular modelling
The Automated force field Topology Builder (ATB) facilitates the generation, validation and refinement of force field parameters for use in molecular modelling applications such as the simulation of biomolecular systems (e.g. proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates), predicting the morphology of novel material (e.g. organic semi-conductors) and computational drug design.
The ATB utilises data from quantum mechanical calculations including the 3D optimised geometry, electrostatic potential energy surface and the Hessian in conjunction with molecular graph analysis to assign parameters and generate all atom and united atom topology files for use in a range of modelling packages including GROMOS, GROMACS, LAMMPS, CNS, Phenix, Refmac5, as well as APBS.
Key features
- Consistent and transferable parameters achieving high accuracy and predictive power with fewer terms
- Robust, well validated and transparent parameterisation strategy
- Predictive over large datasets without use of molecule specific scaling factors
- ATB algorithm optimised using database of over 250,000 drug-like molecules.
Improved spectral efficiency in digital communications
Orthogonal precoding is a promising, linear technique in which the null space of a precoding matrix with orthonormal columns is designed to suppress the sidelobes. However, orthogonal precoders suffer from high arithmetic complexity which has limited their application. UQ research has established that the arithmetic complexity can be made linear instead of quadratic if a block reflector or generalised Householder transformation is used to perform the orthogonal precoding instead of the otherwise unstructured unitary transformation.
Key features
- relevant to wide range of digital communications, including 5G and 6G
- potential 20% spectral efficiency increase compared to industry-standard 5G approaches
- compatible with MIMO approaches.
Safety rotor for remote pilot aircraft systems (RPAS)
Researchers at The University of Queensland have patented a safety feature for RPAS that substantially reduces the risk of injury from the spinning blades.
Key features:
- Retrofittable safety feature ‘safety rotor’ can halt spinning blades in a fraction of a second
- Triggered when an object interferes with the rotation of a hoop enclosing the blades
- The lightweight (<20g) hoop does not interfere with the normal operation of the system.
New technology speeds up pathology workflows
Rapid precision-scanning technology to speed up medical diagnoses and help address Australia’s shortage of trained pathologists is being developed at the University of Queensland (UQ).
UQ’s Digital Pathology team is working to replace glass pathology slides with digital slides for faster analysis, distribution and storage. Almost 70 per cent of GP diagnoses are based on pathology tests, and the changes could revolutionise laboratories. The project could also have applications in immunology, histopathology and microbiology.
The group is using UQ’s newest high-performance computer, Wiener, for its work, with the support of UQ’s Research Computing Centre. A fully automated scanning system for immunology tests has already been deployed and is in use in a pathology laboratory.
