Full EPSRC studentship for 3.5 years including Industrial Placement

Starting date: October 2015

With our esteemed industrial partner, we are looking for a well-qualified and motivated PhD student to conduct the following fascinating research project:

This project has the ambition to tackle issues in terms of accurate vision based self-localization and relative motion navigation for dismounted soldiers GPS denied military missions. The solution includes mainly a stereovision setup of different modalities, visual and infrared, and other hardware capabilities conforming to the mission constraints. These will be required to run imaging algorithms processing the acquired data and outputting motion parameters required for self-localization. The project is a combination of software development and hardware integration where software will include innovations in terms of image processing techniques across different modalities and providing precise motion estimation using a robust optimization framework. Soldiers could be equipped with a visible camera and another infrared camera for night vision. The concept we propose here exploits the availability of the second infrared camera to complement the information obtained through the visible camera, in a stereo setup, to deliver a GPS free navigation solution avoiding constraints that we could find in monocular egomotion based solution. The challenge then is how to effectively use and process different imaging modality data and unifying their respective representations to contribute as feeds for the localization step. The concept we propose will be able to extend this navigation solution into situations where night localization is required. It opens the doors for solutions working under difficult constraints like navigating in complex night-time and also urban environment where the availability of ready map to be used in not possible. The system would be designed and miniaturised to fit the constraints of payload and space availability of dismounted soldiers type of application.

Entry Requirements
Applicants must be UK nationals or EU students who have been resident in the UK for 3+ years. Applicants should hold at least a Bachelor (Hons.) Degree of either First Class or Upper Second Class or hold a Masters Degree (MSc/MRes) in Electrical/Mechatronics/Aerospace/Mechanical or any other relevant discipline of Engineering.

Candidates should have a good basis in mathematics and hardware integration/implementation with very good scientific programming skills (Matlab, C/C++).

Experience in image processing/vision, working with UAVs (Quadrotors) and robotics systems is an asset.

Good interpersonal and communication (oral and written in English) skills are also required.

Funding

Applicants are eligible for a bursary of up to £17,000 p.a. for the duration of the award dependent upon qualifications and experience. This studentship will cover the tuition fees for qualified UK/EU resident the last 3 years in the UK students only. Overseas students are not eligible for funding.

How to apply

A CV and the name and address of two referees should be sent to Dr. Aouf at n.aouf<στο>cranfield.ac.uk. You can also contact Dr. Aouf by email for an informal discussion if required.