Deadline: Applications will be accepted at any time until the position is filled.

This project will make use of massively parallel computing and 3D printing (selective laser sintering) to open up the possibility of a new generation of geometrically complex, light weight, anti-vibration mounting systems that could not be manufactured via conventional means. These are important for a range of small civil UAV systems where high resolution cameras need to be supported for tasks like air-sea rescue, environmental monitoring and disaster relief. To provide high quality images in small aircraft, vibration control is vital to permit stable images to be captured and analysed.

It is well known that to design such anti-vibration systems using deterministic FEA methods allowance must be made for the inevitable variabilities experienced in real systems. Simple one shot design calculations can be highly misleading giving poor performance in practice. This project will adopt next generation robust design processes using sparse quadrature methods to efficiently estimate ensemble behaviour of multiple goals and constraints using massively parallel computational approaches. Measured vibration data taken from flight trials will be used to ensure realistic analyses can be performed. These will be carried out at a range of modelling scales and linked via multi-fidelity meta-models to a series of experimental tests on 3D printed test specimens. This will be ground breaking work in the use of computational modelling and design optimization tools for robust design.

The resulting lightweight UAV camera mounting systems will be flight trialled in the University’s range of small UAV aircraft.

If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Prof Andy Keane, CED research group, Email: ajk<στο>soton.ac.uk, Tel: +44 (0) 2380 59 2944.

Funding information: This project is in competition with others for the associated funding. The funding covers EU/UK fees and stipend. Overseas students may have to cover the difference between UK/EU fees and international fees.

This project is run through participation in the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Next Generation Computational Modelling (http://ngcm.soton.ac.uk). For a summary of our 4 Year PhD programme, please see http://www.findaphd.com/search/PhDDetails.aspx?CAID=331&LID=2652.