(part of ‘Developing a safer and smarter transport system through advances in automation and intelligent mobility mini-CDT’)

The Project:

The vision of future transport is increasingly based on the concept of Intelligent Mobility (IM) where the connected capabilities of partially and fully autonomous vehicles, road infrastructure and traffic management systems place people and goods at the heart of the transport system. Together, road accidents and congestion cost the UK £50 billion a year. New intelligent technologies could deliver a step change in safety and mobility but they bring many research challenges. This mini-CDT will focus on five, strategically selected areas of research in particular:

(1)    Systems of systems architecture

(2)    Safe and smart mobility

(3)    Connected vehicle technologies

(4)    Smart highways

(5)    Human factors

Aim/objectives:

Connected vehicles are vehicles equipped with networked wireless communication with other vehicles, infrastructure and/or personal devices.  One important application of connected vehicle is to improve the transportation safety by increasing situational awareness and reducing or eliminating crashes through vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) data communications. Information about the surrounding environment, no matter from on-board sensors, other nearby vehicles, or infrastructures, should be fused to establish a comprehensive environment picture and to support the driver through appropriate advisories, warnings, and/or vehicle autonomous controls. The key research question is: could these V2V and V2I communication, sensing capabilities be better interpreted and incorporated to increase safety and the level of autonomy.

The Position

This PhD will be based within the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering in collaboration with the School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering. The studentship is for three years and is intended to start in October 2015. The studentship provides a stipend of £13,863 per annum plus tuition fees at the UK/EU rate (currently £3,996 p.a.) for up to three years. International (non-EU) students may apply but will need to find the difference in fees between those for a ‘UK/EU’ and ‘international’ student themselves. Non-UK applicants must meet the minimum English language requirements, details available here: http://www.lboro.ac.uk/international/englang/index.htm

The studentship is open to graduates from numerate disciplines including Civil Engineering, Systems Engineering, Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Computer Science and Statistics, who are interested in autonomous transport systems, data fusion and statistical modelling. The minimum entry qualification is a 2.1 Honours degree or equivalent. Please add this outline proposal to your application.

For an informal discussion, please contact Prof Wen-Hua Chen on 01509 227230 or emailw.chen<στο>lboro.ac.uk

To apply, please complete the online application using the following link:https://luis.lboro.ac.uk/web_apx/f?p=100:1

The closing date for applications is 31 March 2015

Interviews will take place week commencing 20 April 2015

Please quote the following reference when applying: GS15CBE2/M5