| Resume
Chris Cook is an Electrical Engineer who graduated from The University of
Adelaide with a BSc in 1971 and a BE in 1972. After working on the modelling
and control of electrical machines he received his PhD from The University of
New South Wales in 1976. He then went to the U.K. to work for Marconi
Avionics on the design of computers for various aerospace applications. After
three years he returned to Australia to work for GEC as Technical Manager of
their automation and control division in the area of industrial automation.
In 1983 he joined The University of Wollongong and established and became
Managing Director of a University non-profit company called The Automation
Centre with the assistance of $750,000 funding from Commonwealth and State
Governments. This Company has since installed several million dollars worth of
robotic and other automation systems in Industry.
In 1989 he became Professor of Electrical Engineering at Wollongong University
with research interests in industrial automation and power engineering. The
University of Wollongong's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering
has now built up one of the strongest power research groups in New South
Wales. In 1990 he was involved in establishing, with Pacific Power, the Energy
Efficient Research Centre Ltd., a nonprofit company which designs and installs
variable speed drive and other power engineering systems in Industry. In 1996
he continued to develop joint Industry-University initiatives by assisting
with the setting up and running of the 'Power Quality Centre' at the
University of Wollongong with Integral Energy.
In 2002 he was appointed Dean of Engineering
Research Projects
- Superconductor Research
The project is intended to strengthen expertise in Australia in the area of
application of high temperature superconductors (HTSC's) to power engineering.
HTSC material is likely to have substantial future impact in many areas of
the power industry. It is predicted that by the Year 2000 there will be an
annual market of about US$150 billion in superconductors, and a major segment
of this is likely to involve HTSC's in the power industry. Significant
applications of interest in this project include cables to achieve more power
flow for the same duct size, fault current limiters to allow existing assets
to be worked harder, and magnetic energy storage devices to even out peaks and
troughs in loads.
This project combines existing 'science' based knowledge about HTSC's with
practical power engineering design and modelling skills to better understand
and characterise the engineering properties of HTSC's. The intention is to
develop the engineering knowledge of HTSC's to enable their incorporation into
practical power engineering systems.
- Industrial Automation Projects
A number of industrial automation projects underway in
collaboration with the Australian Cooperative Research Centre in Intelligent
Manufacturing. For example one project involves the development of novel
control schemes to improve the performance of servomechanisms in the presence
of non-linearities such as friction and backlash. Low speed and very accurate
position and velocity control for precision machine tools is of particular
interest. Additional real-time control based projects include the control of
robotic and other mechanisms, and the identification and control of welding
processes.
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