About the Project
Type of award PhD Research Studentship
Department Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Details £14,296 - £18,000 depending on student qualifications
Duration 24 months though funding may be extended up to 27 months
Eligibility Home/EU applicants only
Earliest start date 1 January 2017 (or project start)
Latest start date 1 October 2017 (or project M10)
PhD Topic Background/Description In the framework of the H2020 R&D project MULTIDRONE (MULTIple DRONE platform for media production), the PhD stipend holder will be in charge of specifying, researching, implementing, integrating and testing novel algorithms on multidrone HW/SW platforms for media production, more specifically for Multidrone AV shooting and cinematography intelligence and multidrone visual information analysis, including: a) Creation of a taxonomy of shot types for various scenarios, including novel techniques for shot composition, specific to multidrone applications. b) Determination of the optimal shooting parameters (position/viewpoint, orientation, relative motion between platforms, camera parameters etc.) for a range of typical and new shot types. c) Analysis of the quality of the shot data and determination of associated tolerances on the optimum parameters in (a). d) Novel path planning and camera control techniques to ensure the ability of the drone team to follow prescribed cinematographic shooting rules and, e.g., avoid entering into each other’s principal camera field-of-view, in conjunction with target tracking. e) Post-production and evaluation of the resulting video content from actual drone flights.
The focus of his/her work will be defined in by the supervisor and MULTIDRONE Principal Investigator, towards specifying, prioritising and executing R&D, integration and testing subtasks mentioned in (a-e above), according to the project needs and the profile of the R&D team. The project will require a mix of theoretical and programming skills. The post holder will specify, research, implement, evaluate the developed multiple drone SW algorithms and software and integrate/test them on the multidrone platform. He/she will attend regular (weekly) research team meetings at UoB. She/he will liaise with Multidrone partners for integration and testing. The post holder will also be occasionally required to be at partners’ site for data collection, research, integration and/or demonstration/testing of the work.
She/he is expected to produce research publications (possibly in cooperation with other R&D team members or project partners) at high impact conference and journal venues, be able to present research at international conferences and project meetings, develop software libraries and their related
documentation and support the activities of the VI-Lab, including contributing to the supervision of MSc Research Students.
He/she will be required to maintain accurate documentation of all the aspects of the work undertaken and provide progress reports of different levels of detail for project deliverables, reports and project milestones. He must handle issues related drone ethics, safety, security and legal requirements, according to the established project procedures.
University of Bristol will also participate in Multidrone system specifications and design for media production, Cooperative intelligent planning and control for safe autonomous multidrone systems, Integrated MULTIDRONE system implementation, MULTIDRONE system validation and demonstration in experimental media productions, Exploitation and dissemination. The project is a collaboration with several European Universities and industries.
At Bristol, we will be looking for several top-class candidates to join the team on this research challenge, who can demonstrate great potential and a high quality research track record.
Candidate Requirements Degree (or close to completion) in electrical/electronic engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, other engineering, or similar numerate discipline.
Basic skills and knowledge required: Essential: Interest in the development of image processing and computer vision methods and Experience in the development of C/C++ code (or other OOP language).
Desirable:
Interest in developing and implementing visual drone image analysis, or robotic vision, or semantic world modeling, or SLAM or visual tracking.
Interest in real time computer vision methods, visual analysis, under Linux, ROS.
Knowledge of MATLAB, OpenCV.
Interest in integrating computer vision methods with embedded hardware platforms, preferably on drone platforms.
Interest in the development of visual algorithms implemented in software as well as its documentation.
Interest in drone SW/HW system integration and testing.
Application Details To apply for this studentship submit a PhD application using our online application system [www.bristol.ac.uk/pg-howtoapply]
Please ensure that in the Funding section you tick “I would like to be considered for a funding award from the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department” and specify the title of the scholarship in the “other” box below with the name of the supervisor, Prof Ioannis Pitas.
Funding Notes
Scholarship covers full UK/EU (EU applicants who have been resident in the UK for 3 years prior to application) PhD tuition fees and a tax-free stipend in the range £14,296 to £18,000, depending on student qualifications. Funding is for 24 months though it may extend up to 27 months. The successful applicant’s PhD registration will last for 3 years however, with a further year for writing up. Applicants must be prepared to cover the cost of tuition fees and living costs for the third year.
For informal enquiries please email Prof Ioannis Pitas, [Email Address Removed]
For general enquiries, please email [Email Address Removed]
Continue with Facebook
