Funded PhD studentship in Engineering/Computer Science: Gamification of Optimisation of Water Distribution Systems

Location: Streatham Campus, University of Exeter & University of Exeter, Penryn Campus, Cornwall

Project Description:
Applications are invited for the above PhD studentship in Engineering/Computer Science in the College of Engineering, Mathematics and Physical Sciences. This interdisciplinary studentship is part of a larger project with the Centre for Water Systems (www.ex.ac.uk/cws) to develop an interactive evolutionary algorithm system for the optimisation of water systems. Working with the project team and several industrial partners, the studentship will involve the integration of water modelling and interactive evolution systems into a serious game application, allowing players to develop solutions to real-world water systems problems in an engaging, massively multiplayer environment. Through the development of the game we hope to harness the power of crowd-sourcing to solve difficult engineering problems, an approach that is well established in other areas such as bioinformatics (e.g. see ‘Foldit’ and ‘Phylo’). An additional research area will be to investigate the potential for Artificial Intelligence techniques known as evolutionary algorithms to work with human and crowd-sourced knowledge to deliver highly optimal solutions to difficult problems in the water industry.

Academic Entry Requirements:
This studentship is part of a larger project involving the investigators named below, a number of industrial organisations, and two postdoctoral researchers. Applicants should therefore be comfortable working as a member of a team and possess a strong background in Engineering or Computer Science. Applicants must have a first or upper second class undergraduate honours degree, MSc or equivalent, and will preferably have some expertise in water system hydraulic modelling, game development, mobile computing and AI methodologies (e.g. evolutionary computing).