Specialist Node > Space Information Technology

Automation, robotics, machine learning and processing of exa scale space-based data.

Data science, data management and processing, and software engineering.

Our data intensive astronomy (DIA) research group, led by Professor Andreas Wicenec, brings a unique mixture of internationally recognised expertise in space-relevant computer science topics, including:

  • Machine learning and deep learning on general image and video object recognition, detection and classification, also applied to more general problems like time series analysis and general optimisation problems.
  • Development and operation of very large scale, globally distributed data management systems, including remote areas and space.
  • Exa-scale distributed processing software systems: These systems have been deployed and processed data on the largest super-computers in the world and very diverse platforms, including small and large scale cloud systems.
  • Development and optimisation of algorithms and generic solvers.
  • Development of large scientific software applications using modern professional software development practices and following strict delivery schedules. We have a pool of people practicing and certified in the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) for very large distributed agile development projects.

Our space-relevant projects include:

  • Various radio astronomy projects, including the Square Kilometre Array, Murchison Widefield Array, Australian SKA Pathfinder as well as data reduction and support projects for the wider community.
  • Projects in computer vision, object detection and classification.
  • Ocean swell prediction improvement.
  • Gravitational wave detection.
  • Previous involvement in various satellite projects including HIPPARCOS, DIVA and GAIA.

ISC Data Science Team


  • Andreas Wicenec
  • Kevin Vinsen
  • Foivos Diakogiannis
  • Rodrigo Tobar
  • Dave Pallot
  • Mark Boulton
  • Mark Reynolds
  • Mohammed Bennamoun

Data Science Partners and Collaborators


  • International SKA partners
  • Various industry partners including SMEs and very large multi-nationals
  • German Universities (Bielefeld and Stuttgart

Automisation and robots

Our robotics and automation lab, led by Professor Thomas Bräunl, has designed and built over 100 robots over the last two decades. We have built mobile robots from a small scale to full size cars and buses, and robots that drive, walk, sail, dive or fly.

Robot communication and control is a central topic of our work. We have designed and built web-based and app-based remote robot command and control systems. We combine the latest sensor technology in Lidars, cameras, IMUs and (when possible) RTK-enhanced GNSS.

We employ deep-learning AI technologies for end-to-end learning for autonomous driving and detection tasks. We aim to establish a command and control centre as well as a planetary rover testing ground similar to the ‘Martian field’ at NASA/JPL, Pasadena.

ISC Automisation and Robotics Team


  • Thomas Bräunl
  • Mohammed Bennamoun
  • Mohamed Elchalakani
  • Ali Karrech
  • Santiago Perez

Partners and Collaborators


  • Stealth Technologies, Perth