Design and Development of Collaborative UAV Network Platform

Small drones are being utilized in monitoring, transport, safety and disaster management, and other domains. Research and development in small UAV started with addressing control issues, such as flight stability, manoeuvrability, and robustness, followed by designing autonomous vehicles capable of waypoint flights with minimal user intervention. With advances in technology and commercially available vehicles, the interest is shifting toward collaborative UAV systems. Consideration of small vehicles for the aforementioned applications naturally leads to the deployment of multiple aerial vehicles that are networked. Especially, for missions that are time-critical or that span a large geographical area, a single small UAV is insufficient due to its limited energy and payload.
It is often beneficial to deploy a team of drones rather than a single drone since multiple drones can explore areas and coordinate tasks faster.
This studentship project will focus on the development of multi-drone systems with an emphasis on sensing, communication, coordination, and decision making.
A team from NTU Computing (Dr. Eiman Kanjo, Director of study), Engineering department and industrial supervisor from MTC will supervise the student. The student will be based at Clifton Campus and will travel regularly to the Manufacturing Technology Centre in Coventry to join regular team meetings and be engaged in relevant activities.
 
Entrants must have 1st or 2.1 honours degree or equivalent in Computer Science, Electronic, Wireless Communication Engineering or related Discipline. Equivalent professional qualifications and any appropriate research experience may be considered.
Entrants must have excellent oral and written communication skills and an ability to work independently as well as part of a team.