An Engineering Doctorate (EngD) in Novel concepts for high performance opto-mechanical line of sight pointing applications (Thales)

Vacancy not available to non-EU candidates.

The EngD is an alternative to a traditional PhD aimed at students wanting a career in industry. Students spend about 75% of their time working directly with a company in addition to receiving advanced-level training from a broad portfolio of technical and business courses. On completion students are awarded the PhD-equivalent EngD.


Accurate pointing, tracking and stabilisation are critical aspects in a wide range of electro-optical products for land, sea, air and space. Novel technological solutions, in terms of electro-optics, mechanics, control engineering and image processing, are required to deliver substantial improvements in performance, size, weight, power and cost. The aim of the research is to develop enabling technologies for the next generation of new products.



This 4 year EngD programme will investigate the state of the art and emerging technologies relevant to real areas of interest to Thales in applications such as defence, security, communications and energy. The project will include mathematical modelling of the next generation stabilisation and pointing systems, as well as building and testing real-time hardware demonstrators. The ultimate aim is to design and build a concept demonstrator platform to demonstrate high performance pointing and stabilisation. The research and engineering will cover a variety of areas including motor technology, actuators, inertial sensors, lasers, control engineering, image processing, electronics and modelling. The project will also involve representative trials as well as controlled testing using motion platforms.



The EngD candidate will have the opportunity to work with a number of groups in Thales both in the UK and France.

The awarding institution will be the University of Glasgow where the project supervisor Dr. David Anderson is based.