Research interests

• Robotics (Localisation and Mapping)
• Embedded Systems
• Computer Vision
• Artificial Intelligence

Current research

Dr Ehsan is currently interested in the problem of visual place recognition (VPR) which may be described as a process of recognising a previously visited place using visual information, often under varying appearance conditions and viewpoint changes, and with computational constraints. VPR is related to the concepts of localisation, loop closure, image retrieval and is a critical component of many autonomous navigation systems ranging from autonomous vehicles to drones and computer vision systems. While the concept of place recognition has been around for many years, VPR research has grown rapidly as a field over the past decade due to improving camera hardware and its potential for deep learning-based techniques, and has become a widely studied topic in both the computer vision and robotics communities. 

My current teaching responsibilities include:

1. COMP6237 Data Mining. This module introduces key concepts in data mining, information extraction and information indexing; including specific algorithms and techniques for feature extraction, clustering, outlier detection, topic modelling and prediction of complex unstructured data sets. It gives a broad view of the general issues surrounding unstructured and semi-structured data and the application of algorithms to such data. At a practical level, this course provides the chance to explore an assortment of data mining techniques which are applicable to problems involving real-world data.
2. COMP6258 Differentiable Programming and Deep Learning. Deep learning and differentiable programming has revolutionised numerous fields in recent years. We've witnessed improvements in everything from computer vision through speech analysis to natural language processing as a result of the advent of cheap GPGPU compute coupled with large datasets and some neat algorithms. This module looks at how deep learning works, from the theoretical foundations of the concepts of differentiable programming right through to practical implementation.

Dr Shoaib Ehsan is an Associate Professor in the Agents, Interaction and Complexity (AIC) Research Group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of Southampton. He completed his PhD in Computing and Electronic Systems at the University of Essex in 2012. Dr Ehsan obtained his BSc Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila (Pakistan) in 2003. He is an experienced researcher having won major research accolades, including the British Machine Vision Association's Sullivan Doctoral Thesis Prize (2013), and recognition as a 'Researcher with Exceptional Promise' by the Royal Academy of Engineering (2014). He is also a Senior Member of the IEEE. Dr Ehsan has been involved in several EPSRC, ESRC and EU projects and has made significant contributions with his expertise in multiple fields, especially computer vision, embedded systems, robotics and artificial intelligence. 

Prizes