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  • Associate Professor Douglas Chai

    Associate Professor Douglas Chai

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Associate Professor Douglas Chai

Executive Dean, School of Engineering

Staff Member Details
Telephone: +61 8 6304 5874
Email: d.chai@ecu.edu.au
Campus: Joondalup  
ORCID iD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9004-7608

Douglas Chai is the Executive Dean, in an interim capacity, of the School of Engineering.

He is an experienced academic leader who supports strong performance across teaching, research, and engagement.

He currently leads a diverse academic and professional team across electrical, mechanical, civil, chemical, energy, motorsports, and aviation disciplines, with a focus on delivering high-quality education and a positive experience for both students and staff.

Douglas is an active researcher, with 100+ publications, 6,000+ citations, a Field-Weighted Citation Impact of 2.57, 14 HDR completions, two ARC Discovery Projects, and multiple defence-funded collaborations. He also continues to engage in teaching, which helps him stay closely connected to student learning and program quality.

He is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) and a member of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (AICD). He has served in various IEEE committees for over 24 years, including chairmanship of the IEEE Western Australia (WA) Section, the IEEE Signal Processing WA Chapter, and the IEEE ComSoc WA Chapter. In 2019, he received the IEEE WA Section Outstanding Volunteer Award.

Douglas is committed to creating supportive, high-performing academic environments, strengthening partnerships with industry and the community, and advancing the School’s strategic contribution to university priorities.

Research areas and interests

  • Image Processing and Pattern Recognition
  • Computer Vision
  • Visual Communications

Qualifications

  • PhD, The University of Western Australia, 2000.

Research Outputs

2024

Journal Articles

  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D., Islam, S., Akhtar, N. (2024). Multimodal Fusion for Audio- Image and Video Action Recognition. Neural Computing and Applications, 36(10), 5499-5513. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-023-09186-5.
  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D., Islam, S., Akhtar, N. (2024). MHAiR: A dataset of Audio-image Representations for Multimodal Human Actions. Data, 9(2), Article number 21. https://doi.org/10.3390/data9020021.
  • Tenzin, S., Rassau, A., Chai, D. (2024). Application of Event Cameras and Neuromorphic Computing to VSLAM: A Survey. Biomimetics, 9(7), article number 444. https://doi.org/10.3390/biomimetics9070444.
  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D., Islam, S., Akhtar, N. (2024). From CNNs to Transformers in Multimodal Human Action Recognition: A Survey. ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications, 20(8), Article number 260. https://doi.org/10.1145/3664815.

Conference Publications

  • Wijayathunga, N., Dabare, D., Rassau, A., Chai, D., Islam, S. (2024). OUTBACK: A Multimodal Synthetic Dataset for Rural Australian Off-road Robot Navigation. Proceedings - 2024 25th International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications, DICTA 2024 (397-402). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/DICTA63115.2024.00065.

2023

Journal Articles

  • Moniruzzaman, M., Rassau, A., Chai, D., Islam, S. (2023). Structure‐Aware Image Translation‐Based Long Future Prediction for Enhancement of Ground Robotic Vehicle Teleoperation. Advanced Intelligent Systems, 5(2023), 2200439. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202200439.
  • Hameed, K., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2023). Texture-based latent space disentanglement for enhancement of a training dataset for ANN-based classification of fruit and vegetables. Information Processing in Agriculture, 10(1), 85-105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.inpa.2021.09.003.
  • Moniruzzaman, M., Rassau, A., Chai, D., Islam, S. (2023). Long Future Frame Prediction using Optical Flow informed Deep Neural Networks for Enhancement of Robotic Teleoperation in High Latency Environments. Journal of Field Robotics, 40(2), 393-425. https://doi.org/10.1002/rob.22135.
  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D., Islam, S., Akhtar, N. (2023). PyMAiVAR: An open-source python suit for audio-image representation for human action recognition. Software Impacts, 17(September 2023), Article number 100544. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.simpa.2023.100544.
  • Wijayathunga, N., Rassau, A., Chai, D. (2023). Challenges and Solutions for Autonomous Ground Robot Scene Understanding and Navigation in Unstructured Outdoor Environments: A Review. Applied Sciences, 13(17), article number 9877. https://doi.org/10.3390/app13179877.
  • Moniruzzaman, M., Rassau, A., Chai, D., Islam, S. (2023). Structure-Aware Image Translation-Based Long Future Prediction for Enhancement of Ground Robotic Vehicle Teleoperation. Advanced Intelligent Systems, 5(10), article number 2200439. https://doi.org/10.1002/aisy.202200439.

Conference Publications

  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D., Islam, S., Akhtar, N. (2023). MAiVAR-T: Multimodal Audio-image and Video Action Recognizer using Transformers. Proc of the 11th European Workshop on Visual Information Processing (EUVIP 2023) (6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/EUVIP58404.2023.10323051.
  • Uzair, W., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2023). Automated Netlist Generation from Offline Hand-Drawn Circuit Diagrams. 2023 International Conference on Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications, DICTA 2023 (364-370). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/DICTA60407.2023.00057.

2022

Journal Articles

  • Hameed, K., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2022). Score-based mask edge improvement of Mask-RCNN for segmentation of fruit and vegetables. Expert Systems with Applications, 190(15 March 2022), article number 116205. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2021.116205.
  • Moniruzzaman, M., Rassau, A., Chai, D., Islam, S. (2022). High Latency Unmanned Ground Vehicle Teleoperation Enhancement by Presentation of Estimated Future through Video Transformation. Journal of Intelligent and Robotic Systems: theory and applications, 106(2), article number 48. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-022-01749-3.
  • Moniruzzaman, M., Rassau, A., Chai, D., Islam, S. (2022). Robotic teleoperation methods and enhancement techniques: A comprehensive survey. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 150(2022), article number 103973. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.robot.2021.103973.

Conference Publications

  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D., Islam, S., Akhtar, N. (2022). MAiVAR: Multi-modal Audio-Image and Video Action Recognizer. 2022 IEEE International Conference on Visual Communications and Image Processing (VCIP) (1-5). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/VCIP56404.2022.10008833.

2021

Journal Articles

  • Hameed, K., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2021). Class distribution-aware adaptive margins and cluster embedding for classification of fruit and vegetables at supermarket self-checkouts. Neurocomputing, 461(21 October 2021), 292-309. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neucom.2021.07.040.
  • Liu, R., Chen, H., Li, C., He, X., Wang, X., Habibi, D., Chai, D. (2021). Radial profiling of near-borehole formation velocities by a stepwise inversion of acoustic well logging data. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering, 196(January 2021), Article number 107648. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petrol.2020.107648.
  • Shaikh, MB., Chai, D. (2021). Rgb-d data-based action recognition: A review. Sensors, 21(12), Article number 4246. https://doi.org/10.3390/s21124246.

2020

Journal Articles

  • Hameed, K., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2020). A Sample Weight and AdaBoost CNN-Based Coarse to Fine Classification of Fruit and Vegetables at a Supermarket Self-Checkout. Applied Sciences, 10(23), Article number 8667. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10238667.
  • Liu, R., Habibi, D., Chai, D., Wang, X., Chen, H., Gao, Y., Li, S. (2020). A comprehensive review of acoustic methods for locating underground pipelines. Applied Sciences, 10(3), Article number 1031. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10031031.

Conference Publications

  • Hameed, K., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2020). A progressive weighted average weight optimisation ensemble technique for fruit and vegetable classification. Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (303-308). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARCV50220.2020.9305474.

2019

Journal Articles

  • Liu, R., Habibi, D., Chai, D., Wang, X., Chen, H. (2019). A numerical study of axisymmetric wave propagation in buried fluid-filled pipes for optimizing the vibro-acoustic technique when locating gas pipelines. Energies, 12(19), Article number 3707. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12193707.

Conference Publications

  • Liu, R., Habibi, D., Chai, D., Wang, X., Chen, H. (2019). An analytical model of buried plastic gas pipe for acoustic detection. Proceedings of the 26th International Congress on Sound and Vibration (Article number 151920). Canadian Acoustical Association. https://ro.ecu.edu.au/ecuworkspost2013/7243.
  • Chai, D., Zuo, Y. (2019). Extraction, segmentation and recognition of vehicle’s license plate numbers. Advances in Information and Communication Networks Proceedings of the 2018 Future of Information and Communication Conference (724-732). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-03405-4_52.

2018

Journal Articles

Conference Publications

  • Helessage Caldera, S., Rassau, A., Chai, D. (2018). Robotic grasp pose detection using deep learning. 2018 15th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV) (1966-1972). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARCV.2018.8581091.

2017

Conference Publications

  • Alomran, M., Chai, D. (2017). Feature-based panoramic image stitching. 14th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (ICARCV), 2016 (Article no. 7838721). IEEE Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICARCV.2016.7838721.

2016

Conference Publications

  • Chai, D. (2016). Automated Marking of Printed Multiple Choice Answer Sheets. Proceedings of the 2016 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE) (145-149). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.. https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE.2016.7851785.

2012

Journal Articles

Conference Publications

  • Tan, A., Chai, D. (2012). Improving mobile color 2D-barcode JPEG image readability using DCT coefficient distributions. Proceedings of the 2012 International Conference on Audio Language and Image Processing (123-128). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICALIP.2012.6376598.

2011

Conference Publications

  • Ong, S., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2011). Adaptive use of thresholding and multiple colour space representation to improve classification of MMCC barcode. 2011 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia and Expo (ICME) (1-6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICME.2011.6011862.
  • Ong, S., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2011). A robust mobile business card reader using MMCC barcode. 2011 IEEE Symposium on Computers and Informatics (ISCI) (656-661). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISCI.2011.5958994.

2010

Books

  • Kato, H., Tan, A., Chai, D. (2010). Barcodes for mobile devices. Cambridge University Press.

Book Chapters

  • Tan, A., Ong, S., Chai, D. (2010). Modelling of camera phone capture channel for JPEG colour barcode images. Communications in Computer and Information Science, 1 (259-266). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-10546-3.

Journal Articles

  • Tan, A., Chai, D., Kato, H., Ong, S. (2010). A color 2D-barcode for mobile applications: design tips. IEEE Pervasive Computing, PP(99), 1p.. https://doi.org/10.1109/MPRV.2010.67.

Conference Publications

  • Ong, S., Chai, D., Rassau, A. (2010). The use of alignment cells in MMCC barcode. Communications and Information Technologies (ISCIT), 2010 International Symposium on (640-645). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISCIT.2010.5665067.
  • Tan, A., Chai, D. (2010). A new perspective on first read rate of 2D barcodes in mobile applications. The 6th IEEE International Conference on Wireless, Mobile and Ubiquitous Technologies in Education (WMUTE 2010) (192-194). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/WMUTE.2010.45.
  • Tan, KT., Chai, D. (2010). JPEG compression of monochrome 2D-barcode images using DCT coefficient distributions. Image Processing (ICIP), 2010 17th IEEE International Conference on (2169-2172). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICIP.2010.5651337.

2009

Journal Articles

  • Eng, S., Reinholz, F., Chai, D. (2009). Twisted-nematic liquid-crystal-on-silicon adaptive optics aberrometer and wavefront corrector. Journal of Biomedical Optics, 14(4), 44014. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.3183814.
  • Eng, S., Reinholz, F., Chai, D. (2009). A high-resolution wavefront compensating system using a liquid-crystal on silicon chip. Microwave and Optical Technology Letters, 51(12), 2979-2985. https://doi.org/10.1002/mop.24794.
  • Tan, A., Ong, S., Chai, D. (2009). JPEG color barcode images analysis: a camera phone capture channel model with auto-focus. International Journal of Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition, 2(4), 39-47.

Conference Publications

  • Kato, H., Tan, A., Chai, D. (2009). Novel colour selection scheme for 2D barcode. International Symposium on Intelligent Signal Processing and Communication Systems, 2009. ISPACS 2009. (529-532). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISPACS.2009.5383786.
  • Tan, A., Ong, S., Chai, D. (2009). Modelling of camera phone capture channel for JPEG colour barcode images. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition (259-266). Springer.
  • Ong, S., Chai, D., Tan, A. (2009). Performance of mobile camera on colour 2D barcode. International Symposium on Intelligent Signal Processing and Communication Systems, 2009. ISPACS 2009. (497-500). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISPACS.2009.5383794.

2008

Conference Publications

  • Ong, S., Chai, D., Tan, A. (2008). The Use of Border in Colour 2D Barcode. Proceedings of the 2008 International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications (999-1005). IEEE.
  • Kato, H., Tan, A., Chai, D. (2008). Development Of A Novel Finder Pattern For Effective Color 2D-Barcode Detection. Proceedings of the IEEE International Symposium on Parallel and Distributed Processing with Applications (1006-1013). IEEE.

2007

Conference Publications

  • Chai, D. (2007). One Dimensional Barcode Reading Algorithm. Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information Technology in Asia 2007 (230-235). Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.

2006

Conference Publications

  • Tropf, A., Chai, D. (2006). Locating 1-D Bar Codes in DCT-Domain. Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (741-744). IEEE.

2005

Journal Articles

  • Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, A., Chai, D. (2005). Skin segmentation using color pixel classification: analysis and comparison. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, 27(1), 148-154.

Conference Publications

  • Tropf, A., Chai, D. (2005). Region segmentation for facial image compressing. The proceedings of the 2005 Fifth International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (1565-1569). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICS.2005.1689320.
  • Boussaid, F., Bouzerdoum, A., Chai, D. (2005). VLSI implementation of a skin detector based on a neural network. The Proceedings of the 2005 Fifth International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (1561-1564). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICICS.2005.1689330.
  • Chai, D., Hock, F. (2005). Locating and decoding EAN-13 barcodes from images captured by digital cameras. The proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (1556-1560). IEEE. https://doi.org/DOI is 10.1109/ICICS.2005.1689328.

2004

Conference Publications

  • Wong, KW., Fung, CC., Gedeon, T., Chai, D. (2004). Intelligent data mining and personalisation for customer relationship management. 2004 8th International Conference on Control, Automation, Robotics and Vision (1796-1801). IEEE.
  • Chai, D., Wong, KW. (2004). Facial image processing: An overview. 2004 IEEE Conference on Cybernetics and Intelligent Systems [electronic resource] (307-311). IEEE.
  • Boussaid, F., Chai, D., Bouzerdoum, S. (2004). On-chip skin color detection using a triple-well CMOS process. Microelectronics: Design, Technology and Packaging. Proceedings of SPIE, Volume 5274 (206-214). SPIE.

2003

Conference Publications

  • Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, S., Chai, D. (2003). Skin segmentation using color and edge information. The Seventh International Symposium on Signal Processing and its Applications ISSPA 2003 (4 pages). IEEE.
  • Phung, S., Chai, D., Bouzerdoum, S. (2003). Adaptive skin segmentation in color images. Proceedings on 2003 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (VIII-353-6). IEEE. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICASSP.2003.1199483.
  • Boussaid, F., Chai, D., Bouzerdoum, S. (2003). On-chip detection for color CMOS imagers. Proceedings of the 2003 International Conference on MEMS, NANO and Smart Systems (357-361). IEEE Computer Society.
  • Chai, D., Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, S. (2003). A Bayesian skin/non-skin color classifier using non-parametric density estimation. Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (464-467). IEEE.
  • Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, S., Chai, D., Kuczborski, W. (2003). A color-based approach to automatic human face detection. Proceedings of the 3rd IEEE International Symposium on Signal Processing and Information Technology, 2003. ISSPIT 2003. (531-534). IEEE Press. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISSPIT.2003.1341175.
  • Boussaid, F., Chai, D., Bouzerdoum, S. (2003). A current-mode VLSI architecture for skin detection. The Seventh International Symposium on Signal Processing and its Applications ISSPA 2003 (4p). IEEE.

2002

Conference Publications

  • Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, S., Chai, D. (2002). A Distribution-Based Face/Non-face Classifier Using Gaussian Mixtures. 4th IASTED International Conference on Signal and Image Processing (). ACTA Press.

2001

Conference Publications

  • Bouzerdoum, S., Chai, D., Phung, S. (2001). Skin colour based face detection. 7th Australian and New Zealand Intelligent Information Systems Conference (0). IEEE.
  • Chai, D., Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, S. (2001). Face localization based on color and shape information in a neural network approach. 3rd International Conference on Information, Communications and Signal Processing (CDROM). IEEE.
  • Chai, D., Bouzerdoum, S. (2001). Jpeg 2000 image compression: An overview. 7th Australian and New Zealand Intelligent Information Systems Conference (0). IEEE.
  • Chai, D., Phung, S., Bouzerdoum, S. (2001). Skin color detection for face localization in human-machine communications. 6th Internatrional Symposium on Signal Processing and its Applications (0). IEEE.

Research Projects

  • Enhanced Tele-operation for improved control of Autonomous Field Robots in Challenging Environments, Defence Science and Technology Group of the Department of Defence, Scholarships to Support Industry Engagement PhD Projects, 2019 ‑ 2023, $35,000.
  • Aurecon Australasia – INT 1243 LLMs in Engineering, Aurecon Australasia Pty Ltd, APRIntern, 2023, $16,000.
  • Exploring the State of the Art in Ground Vehicle Leader-Follower Technologies , Defence Science and Technology Group of the Department of Defence, Grant, 2019, $63,370.
  • Advanced Capture, Analysis and Compression of Facial Images, Australian Research Council, Grant - Discovery Projects, 2003 ‑ 2006, $213,462.
  • A Skin Detection Micro-Sensor for Face Identification using Color and Stereo Information, Australian Research Council, Grant - Discovery Projects, 2004 ‑ 2006, $4,384.
  • Visual information processing, Edith Cowan University, Scholarship - Post Doctoral, 1999 ‑ 2003, $99,000.

Research Student Supervision

Current Supervisions

Principal Supervisor

  • Master of Engineering Science, Automatic End-to-End Electronic Schematic Recognition System for use as an Educational Aid

Associate Supervisor

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Multi-Modal Scene Understanding for Mobile Robot Navigation in Unstructured Outdoor Environments
  • Master of Engineering Science, Deep Reinforcement Learning with Expert Demonstrations for Mobile Robot Navigation in Unstructured Off-Road Environments

Completed Supervisions

Principal Supervisor

  • Master of Engineering Science, Automated optical mark recognition scoring system for multiple-choice questions
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Adaptive optics aberrormeter and wavefront corrector using a twisted-nematic liquid-crystal on silicon chip
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Computer vision based classification of fruits and vegetables for self-checkout at supermarkets
  • Doctor of Philosophy, A high data capacity barcode for mobile phones
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Multimodal Human Action Recognition using Deep Learning
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Recognition of electric circuit schematics

Co-principal Supervisor

  • Doctor of Philosophy, Acoustic wave propagation in radially layered cylindrical waveguides and its application in fluid energy resource exploration and transportation
  • Master of Engineering Science, Learning to grasp in unstructured environments with deep convolutional neural networks using a baxter research robot
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Design and analysis of high speed optical correlators for multiwavelength optical header recognition and optical code division multiple access
  • Doctor of Philosophy, Teleoperation enhancement for improved control of unmanned ground vehicles through video transformation and deep learning based future frame prediction

Associate Supervisor

  • Master of Engineering Science, Towards Neuromorphic Visual SLAM: A Spiking Neural Network for Efficient Pose Estimation and Loop Closure Based on Event Camera Data
  • Doctor of Philosophy, 2D barcodes for mobile devices.
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