Professor Naish's research interests lie in the general area of design and manufacturing. His main fields of expertise are multisensor systems, machine vision, intelligent systems and mechatronics.
Professor Naish is interested in improving machines and systems through the addition of intelligence and perception. His research activities have focused on ways to improve the quality of information available to automated systems. His early work concerned the on-line grading and inspection of non-uniform food products. The outcome of this work was the Extended Logical Sensor Architecture (ELSA) for multisensor integration. ELSA provides a mechanism by which object features are interactively modelled. Modelled features drive the selection of logical sensors, which encapsulate both physical sensors and processing algorithms in a common model. This facilitates system design and understanding by domain experts who understand a process but lack specific signal processing knowledge.
More recent research activities have included the development of a methodology to dynamically determine optimal sensor configurations for the "surveillance" of a moving object by multiple sensors. The methodology consists of two stages: The first determines the sensing-system configuration off-line (number and type of sensors, initial sensor poses, etc.) using optimization techniques. Second, the sensor poses (if the sensors can be moved) and the sensing strategy are adjusted in real time, in response to object manoeuvres. Sensors are "dispatched" to either service immediate sensing demands or to anticipate upcoming demands. Sensor dispatching is accomplished using heuristics and strategies determined through reinforcement learning. For each demand, measurement uncertainty is mitigated through sensor fusion.
In addition, Professor Naish is interested in a number of diverse topics, including: the design of novel robotic devices, the coordination and control of robot teams, mobile robotics in unstructured environments, sensor modelling, medical robotics, and flexible manufacturing.
