Postgraduate research project

Machine learning for multi-robot perception

Funding
Competition funded View fees and funding
Type of degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Entry requirements
2:1 honours degree View full entry requirements
Faculty graduate school
Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences
Closing date

About the project

We are looking for a talented PhD student (fully funded) to work on the intersection of machine learning and swarm robotics. The goal of this PhD project is to propose a collective decision-making strategy and a learning model for robots that would lead to precise mapping of unknown environments.

Machine learning models such as generative adversarial networks can generate data (e.g. images) that have not been measured or obsevered before. One of the use cases for the generated data is to build novel perceptions of an unforeseen environment. This PhD project focuses on using machine learning on a large robot swarm that have partial observations of an environment and the idea is to coordinate these models in a way that a complete picture of the environment can be constructed.

In this project, you will gain a deep understanding of:

  • novel algorithms in machine learning,
  • image processing
  • multi-robot systems.

Successful candidates would have a strong background in computer science and preference would be given to those with good understanding of machine learning, formal methods and good programming skills. You will join the School of Electronics and Computer Science which is ranked 1st in the UK for Electrical and Electronic Engineering (Guardian University Guide 2022) within the University of Southampton which is ranked in the top 1% of universities worldwide.

You will be supervised by world leading researchers in their field and join an exceptional and vibrant team of postdoctoral researchers and other PhD students. You will benefit from the training and networking activities in the UKRI’s Trustworthy Autonomous Systems’ Hub and the EPSRC Smart Solutions Towards Cellular-Connected Unmanned Aerial Vehicles System (AUTONOMY) project. We will support the development of your future career (networking with more than 100 industry partners and universities across the UK) and give you opportunities to expand your experience and knowledge beyond the topic of the PhD project.