Data Mining for Industrial Gamification Platform

Application Deadline: May 2017
Start Date June 2017
Eligibility: UK, EU, Rest of the world
Duration of award: 3 years
Ref: SATM0008


This project will investigate the use of data mining techniques to support a gamification platform for industry. The use of gamification for the development of factory layouts and the operation of production facilities is a new research field. The re-emergence of gamification as a concept has been triggered by falling price points for hardware, ability to track personal data and the ubiquity and accessibility of the gaming paradigm. The use of SimCity as a metaphor for the design of this system is appropriate as the mode of simulated game environment will be the overriding framework for its operation.

The gamification system will be capable of being connected to live business and manufacturing systems on a read only basis and will accept certain instances of live streamed sensor data. This real time production of scenarios will allow a new level of realism to be modelled, providing a safe environment for experimentation with new production rule and methods. The gamification engine will in some cases allow for the automated generation of new or adapted scenarios based on machine learning techniques providing a new mode of automated experiment development.

Big data sets in the form of manufacturing related data will be utilised though the use of a base architecture provided by a Hadoop / Apache Spark based solution. It is an aim of this research that a semantic ontology to support the gamification platform should be delivered. The ontology should be capable of describing common activities and manufacturing scenarios within the gamification environment.

One of the objectives of this work is to contribute to the development of a methodology of game interaction, providing rewards to users for beneficial actions taken in the game environment and appropriate balancing of risks and opportunities. The data mining framework will support this objective in terms of its ability to mine data in real time and near to real time. Machine learning algorithms will also be employed to provide pattern detection and decision making functionality to the gamification environment.

Entry requirements:
Applicants should have a first or second class UK honors degree or equivalent in a related discipline, such as mathematics, or engineering. The ideal candidate should have some understanding of big data platforms – e.g. Microsoft Azure and/or Hadoop/Spark vendor products, Semantic ontology production and machine learning experience. The candidate should be self-motivated, have good communication skills for regular interaction with other stakeholders, with an interest for industrial research.

Funding:
Sponsored by HSSMI DETC, this studentship will provide a bursary of up to £14,500 - £ 18,000 p.a. (tax free) plus fees* for three years.
* To be eligible for this funding, applicants must be a UK national.We require that applicants are under no restrictions regarding how long they can stay in the UK i.e. have no visa restrictions or applicant has “settled status” and has been “ordinarily resident” in the UK for 3 years prior to start of studies and has not been residing in the UK wholly or mainly for the purpose of full-time education. (This does not apply to UK or EU nationals). Due to funding restrictions all EU nationals are eligible to receive a fees-only award if they do not have “settled status” in the UK.