About the Project
Type of award PhD Research Studentship
Department Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Details £14,296 - £18,000 depending on student qualifications
Duration 3 years
Eligibility Home/EU applicants only
Start Date 1 January 2017
Deadline 1 January 2017
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, proposing, researching, implementing, integrating and testing novel algorithms on multidrone HW/SW platforms for media production, namely multidrone active perception algorithms for AV shooting: a) Visual world mapping (pre-production semantic world modeling, on-line updating of the semantic world model semantic world modeling. sparse/dense 3D world modeling, adaptable/distributed/incremental/approximate semantic/3D world modeling) to be used in multidrone localization for visual mobile target tracking and possibly in 3D scene visualization. b) Multidrone localization and visual target tracking for intelligent AV shooting (multidrone (re)localization/SLAM, visual target recognition/tracking/localization towards satisfying multiple drone AV shooting needs and cinematography intelligence requirements), c) Multidrone visual information analysis (to support target detection/tracking and updating the semantic world map, e.g. with obstacle/crowd information).
The focus of his/her work will be defined in by the supervisor and principal investigator, towards specifying, prioritising and executing R&D, integration and testing subtasks mentioned in (a-c above) according to the project needs and the profile of the R&D team. The post holder will specify, research, implement, integrate and evaluate the developed multidrone SW algorithms and software. 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.
He/she 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, develop software libraries and their related documentation.
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. They 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. One post (this advert) will be on Multidrone research/integration on multidrone active perception for AV shooting and will be hosted by the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Bristol. All post holders will collaborate under the guidance of the Principal Coordination in cooperation with other academic staff members and be in coordination with the other project partners.
Excerpts of Multidrone technical description can be available to clarify the work to be carried out.
Candidate Requirements Degree (or close to completion) in electrical/electronic engineering, computer science, mathematics, physics, other engineering, or similar discipline.
Basic skills and knowledge required: Essential: Interest in the development of computer vision, image processing methods (possibly using machine learning) and Experience in the development of C/C++ code (or other OOP languages).
Desirable: Interest in developing and implementing visual mapping/SLAM/visual target tracking systems. 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 in 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 Details
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.
Informal enquiries For informal enquiries please email Prof Ioannis Pitas, [Email Address Removed]
For general enquiries, please email [Email Address Removed]