Computer Vision & AI Systems for Tewantin

Our CTO (Luke Cole) previously worked for Hemisphere GPS (orginally called BEELINE, and now bought out by AgJunction) as a "Robotics Engineer" implementing auto-guidance solutions for various quadbikes and agriculture tractors that was used by 100's of vehicles around the world.

For 10 years, starting as a teenager in 1998 - Luke Cole has also worked for leading research institutes and companies such as NICTA (now called CSIRO Data61), CSIRO, Seeing Machines and ANU Robotics System Lab (lead by Alex Zelinsky, who received a rare prestigious AO award in 2017 and was Defence Scientist of Australia from 2012 for 6 years). Luke's work included various autonomous mobile robot projects, involving computer vision, and even a self-driving car early 2000's. Back then OpenCV and ROS didn't exist, so we did a "roll-your-own" called VisLib and DROS comprised of 364,578 lines of code.

Lance Cole has also worked at NICTA and has a background of various hardware development, such as working for a contract company to the US millary (EOS), building the Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station (CROWS).

COLETEK's team all has a background in computer vision and machine vision, which have built a wide range of skills and technologies such as:

• Collision Avoidance
• Pattern Recognition
• Object Recognition
• Object Tracking
• Machine Learning
• Deep Learning
• Optical Flow, Point Clouds
• Stereo Active Vision, Panoramic Cameras, Fisheye Lens/Camera, Log-polar Camera, Time of Flight Cameras, Camera Array
• 3D Reconstruction

These technologies can be used for various applications such as:

• Licence Plate Recognition (LPR) or Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)
• Production Line Object Recognition
• Production Line Automation
• Asset Tracking
• Kid Tracking
• Pedestrian Tracking
• Face Recognition
• Load Haul Dump Automation
• Agriculture Automation
• Storm Drain Inspection Robot
• Robot Lawn Mower
• Forklift Automation
• Home Land Security Robots

Tewantin is part of the Noosa district and was the original settlement of Noosa. The name Tewantin is the europeanised version of the Aboriginal name for the area, dauwadhum, meaning place of dead logs. Tewantin was originally a timber town. In 1869, Tewantin was the river port for the Noosa area. In 1871 Clarendon Stuart surveyed a town site for the Tewantin settlement. Tewantin was a thriving small town with a reliance on the gold, fishing and timber industries.

Its main street, Poinciana Ave, leads to the Tewantin RSL, which holds a strong legacy towards the Australia's history in war. With an ANZAC Memorial, Poinciana Ave has a well destinguished pub, the royal mail.An innovative streetscape has made Poinciana Avenue a pedestrian friendly area with a range of shops, restaurants and town square.

Tewantin, among other things, is home to the primary school Tewantin State School.

Tewantin is the location for Noosa Council. The Noosa ferry goes to Noosa Harbour from where you can walk to Tewantin.

While the Sunshine Coast population explosion might have bridged the gap which once divided it from the resort capital of Noosa Heads, Tewantin still manages to retain its individuality.

Tewantin began as a frontier port where ships called to load the logs floated down the Noosa River from the rich cedar timber stands round the shores of Lake Cootharaba, the largest lake in the Noosa River system, a few kilometres to the north. Fittingly, it took its name from the Aboriginal word for place of dead logs.