Rate My Professor Kieran Quirke-Brown

Kieran Quirke-Brown is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences at the University of Western Australia. He teaches courses in Mobile Robots and Digital and Embedded Systems, emphasizing that experience is the best teacher. Quirke-Brown also serves in a supporting role as student manager for the Renewable Energy Vehicles Project (REV), directed by Professor Thomas Bräunl, which develops autonomous shuttle buses for campus and on-road driving. Prior to his academic positions, he worked as a Smart Services Engineer at Schneider Electric, deploying and retrofitting Building Management Systems (BMS) control systems.

Quirke-Brown earned a Master of Professional Engineering from the University of Western Australia, a Master of Information Technology from the University of Queensland, and a PhD from UWA in 2025. His doctoral thesis, Reactive and proactive autonomous driving techniques, investigates SAE Level 4 autonomy through mathematical-model-based methods like SLAM and local control for campus driving, and end-to-end AI models using vision and LiDAR for suburban driving, enhanced by safety systems. The work highlights that simulations underrepresent real-world conditions, with sequential models outperforming CNNs and SSMs showing strong results in compact forms. His research focuses on autonomous vehicles and robotics in practical implementations. Key publications include Managing Risk in the Design of Modular Systems for an Autonomous Shuttle (2024, IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, co-authored with T. Drage et al.) and A Generative Self-Diagnosis Disengagement Reporting System for Autonomous Shuttles (2025, IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium, co-authored with X. Kong et al.). In 2022, as a PhD student, he led a team demonstrating UWA's driverless bus in northern Western Australia.