Location:  Streatham Campus

Primary supervisor:  Dr Halim Alwi
Secondary supervisor:  Prof Christopher Edwards

Research in the area of Fault Tolerant Control (FTC) has received significant attention in the last few decades. However, despite all the advancement and maturation in (academic) state-of the-art FTC schemes, there are still two main issues which hinder further testing and application of state-of-the-art FTC schemes (especially) on aerospace systems: namely cost and safety. One way to cheaply and safely implement and test state-of-the-art FTC schemes is to consider unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

One of the most popular UAVs used in an academic environment is the quadrotor. However, due to the lack of redundant rotors on this four rotor configuration, quadrotors can only handle rotor faults and cannot even cope with one of its rotors failing completely.

In order to be able to handle total failures, it is natural to consider octorotors which are more suitable for FTC due to the available redundancy associated with the eight rotor configuration. However, despite the existence of work on octorotors in the literature, there are only a few published schemes that can deal with faults/failures – especially a failure to more than one rotor. Recent research work has started to explore the benefit and capabilities provided by the redundant rotors in octorotor configurations in terms of FTC.

It is envisaged that this project will involve the development of a UAV platform suitable for testing/validating FTC schemes. The project will include the development of mathematical models and novel FTC schemes which will subsequently be implemented and tested on the UAV platform.

Contact for Informal enquiries: Dr. Halim Alwi (h.alwi<στο>exeter.ac.uk)

Postgraduate Research Office: emps-pgr-ad<στο>exeter.ac.uk

Applicants should have at least a 2:1 Honours degree, or equivalent, in Aeronautical/Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical/Electronic Engineering, Software Engineering or equivalent. Any experience or interest with UAV and/or embedded systems will be an added advantage.

How to apply To apply, you must complete the online web form. You will be asked to submit some personal details and upload a full CV, covering letter and details of two academic referees. Your covering letter should outline your academic interests, prior research experience and reasons for wishing to undertake this project.