robotic PhD Projects, Programs & Scholarships

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

Applicants are invited to undertake a 3 year PhD programme in partnership with industry to address key challenges in on-platform manufacturing engineering.

Computer vision and robot control for performing on-wing repair of aero-engines - ENG 1236

University of Nottingham
Faculty of Engineering

Prof D Axinte

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities.

Rolls-Royce University Technology Centre (UTC) in manufacturing and On-Wing Technology, The University of Nottingham. Applicants are invited to undertake a 3 year PhD programme in partnership with industry to address key challenges in on-platform manufacturing engineering.

Fibre Optic Shape Sensing for Robotics

Cranfield University
School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing (SATM)

Dr Tom Charrett

Application Deadline: 28 August 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This research project has funding attached. It is only available to UK citizens or those who have been resident in the UK for a period of 3 years or more. Some projects, which are funded by charities or by the universities themselves may have more stringent restrictions.

A fully funded PhD studentship (up to £17k pa tax-free bursary and fees paid) is available to develop novel optical instrumentation for robotics and automation.

Robotic Processing of surfaces from additive manufacturing

University of Huddersfield
School of Computing and Engineering

Dr F Gao, Dr G Yu

Application Deadline: 26 June 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (UK Students Only)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This research project is one of a number of projects at this institution. It is in competition for funding with one or more of these projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be awarded the funding. The funding is only available to UK citizens or those who have been resident in the UK for a period of 3 years or more. Some projects, which are funded by charities or by the universities themselves may have more stringent restrictions.

Project Introduction. This project focuses on a very topical development - additive-manufacture (3D-printing) of complex metal components.

Robotic Implants to Control Body Functions

University of Sheffield
Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering

Dr D Damian

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project is in competition for funding with other projects. Usually the project which receives the best applicant will be successful. Unsuccessful projects may still go ahead as self-funded opportunities. Applications for the project are welcome from all suitably qualified candidates, but potential funding may be restricted to a limited set of nationalities. You should check the project and department details for more information.

In this project we explore a new class of medical robots – robotic implants, which reside inside the body for the repair, reinforcement, and control of physical functions for a long period of time.

PhD studentship: Assured and Scalable Self-Adaptation for the Engineering of Trustworthy Autonomous Robotic Teams

University of York
Department of Computer Science

Dr S Gerasimou, Dr J Cámara

Application Deadline: 3 July 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached for UK and EU students, though the amount may depend on your nationality. Non-EU students may still be able to apply for the project provided they can find separate funding. You should check the project and department details for more information.

Applications are invited for a three-year PhD studentship, supported by the Defence Science & Technology Laboratory (DSTL), to be undertaken within the Department of Computer Science (http://www.cs.york.ac.uk/) at the University of York.

Robotics for carbon-neutral fusion-energy – University of Manchester & RACE @ UKAEA

The University of Manchester
Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering

Prof G Herrmann

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached for UK and EU students, though the amount may depend on your nationality. Non-EU students may still be able to apply for the project provided they can find separate funding. You should check the project and department details for more information.

RACE (Remote Applications in Challenging Environments, http://www.race.ukaea.uk/) was founded in 2014 as part of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to create robots operated in some of the most challenging environments.

’Robotic Grasping using Dynamic Active-Pixel Vision Sensor’’

Kingston University
Faculty of Science, Engineering and Computing

Dr Y Zweiri

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

The main aim of this project is to develop a dynamic vision-based grasping system which can detect, track and manipulate unknown objects during a complex manufacturing or biomedical engineering processes to achieve a stable and safe manipulation in real time.

Supply chain Robotic Process Automation through Machine Learning

University of Bradford
Faculty of Engineering and Informatics

Research Group: Applied Computing

Dr ARA Abdullatif, Dr S Kabir, Dr I Ghafir

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

In Supply Chain optimization, understanding which item is worth keeping in stock, considering several factors ranging from continuous features, like demand pattern clustered in diﬀerent time buckets, to categorical features like supplier name, and internal tagging like obsolete or special certiﬁcation needed, is a key task for the planner.

Static verification of robotic simulations

University of York
Department of Computer Science

Prof A Cavalcanti

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Research areas. Autonomous and self-adaptive systems; Cyber Physical Systems; Formal specification languages, methods and tools;.

TITUS: Telexistence In Through-life engineering Services PhD

Cranfield University
School of Aerospace, Transport and Manufacturing (SATM)

Dr J Ahmet Erkoyuncu

Application Deadline: 29 June 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached for UK and EU students, though the amount may depend on your nationality. Non-EU students may still be able to apply for the project provided they can find separate funding. You should check the project and department details for more information.

Telexistence provides a means to complete maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) activities remotely that have the risk of causing physical injury and harm to the maintainer, or the by the same method, exceed the normal human capabilities of the individual with physical augmentation able to deal with increased loads without additional human manpower.

Control of Magnetically-driven Soft Continuum Robots

University of Leeds
School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering

Prof P Valdastri, Prof R Harris

Application Deadline: 26 June 2020

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project has funding attached for UK and EU students, though the amount may depend on your nationality. Non-EU students may still be able to apply for the project provided they can find separate funding. You should check the project and department details for more information.

Magnetically-driven Soft Robots are of increasing interest due to the range of new transformative applications they may enable. Within these are continuum robots which are of particular focus due to their potential to be used within the body to perform diagnostics and treatments.

Bioinspired Robot Swarm for Monitoring Tasks

Aberdeen University
School of Engineering

Dr M Giannaccini, Dr A Starkey

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Applications are invited for one doctoral position in robotics at the School of Engineering, University of Aberdeen. The successful candidate will undertake research focusing on bioinspired swarm robotics for monitoring applications.

Novel Fractional-order Control Schemes

Aberdeen University
School of Engineering

Dr S S Aphale, Dr A ALIAKBAR JAMSHIDI FAR

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

Fractional-order systems theory and control development has recently gained a lot of attention – mainly due to its potential to address several complex dynamic behaviours within a pseudo-linear system framework.

Investigating the attentional consequences of the uncanny valley

The University of Manchester
Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health

Dr E Poliakoff, Dr E Gowen, Dr C Capek

Applications accepted all year round

Funding Type

PhD Type

PhD Research Projects are advertised opportunities to examine a pre-defined topic or answer a stated research question. Some projects may also provide scope for you to propose your own ideas and approaches.

This project does not have funding attached. You will need to have your own means of paying fees and living costs and / or seek separate funding from student finance, charities or trusts.

The “uncanny valley” was hypothesed by roboticist Mori in 1970, whereby people would like robots of increasingly human-likeness until they were close to, but not fully human.