The University of Sussex in UK invites applications for a PhD Studentship in Swarm exploration: multi-robot visual navigation through insect-inspired strategies for the 2018/2019 academic year.
Project Details
Navigation is a vital task for autonomous robots, whether searching a disaster zone or exploring a planet. Bees are champion navigators, traveling miles for food efficiently and accurately: what if we could give robots the navigation abilities of a bee? And what if we could share the learned knowledge in multi-robot teams? For instance, flying robots could rapidly survey an area, identify a person in difficulty and pass their knowledge to bigger, but slower, wheeled robots that can offer assistance. Building on our insect-inspired work at Sussex [1-3] you will develop bio-inspired algorithms that allow such navigation in heterogeneous robot teams, opening up a new area of robot autonomy.
This exciting interdisciplinary project will form part of the EPSRC funded Brains on Board (BoB; brainsonboard.co.uk) program grant, a multi-university project in which we aim to create robots with the learning abilities of bees. You will join the Sussex BoB team and contribute to the overall vision of the project while benefitting from years of experience in bio-inspired algorithms, cutting-edge facilities, and equipment, funding for conferences and the team’s multi-disciplinary expertise.
Worth of Award
£14,777 tax-free stipend plus UK/EU fees waiver.
Eligibility
- UK, Europe (Non-UK), International (Non-UK/EU)
- Applicants will have an excellent academic record and should have received or be expected to receive a relevant first or upper-second class honours degree.
- The EPSRC award is available to UK and to EU students who have been ordinarily resident in the UK for the previous 3 years. EU candidates who do not meet this criteria will be eligible for a fee waiver only.
- Overseas (non EU) students are not eligible to apply for EPSRC funding, but they are welcome to apply if they have access to other sources of funding.
How to Apply
- Please apply for a PhD in Informatics via the University of Sussex postgraduate application system (http://www.sussex.ac.uk/study/apply).
- Include a brief statement of your scientific interests and skills/experience for the mandatory “research proposal” section, including how they relate to this project (maximum two pages).
- Indicate Prof Thomas Nowotny as your preferred advisor and clearly state the title of the studentship in the finance section.
Deadline: applications close March 2, 2018