PhD Research Studentship; Imperial College London

Centre for Transport Studies

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in Positioning and Navigation. This studentship is funded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and is part of a wider project involving four universities (Nottingham, UCL, Imperial College London and the University of Westminster) and nine commercial companies and government agencies. The project involves collaborative research focussing on the exploitation of new Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) signals.

The new signals (from the US’s modernized GPS, Russia’s GLONASS, Europe’s GALILEO and China’s Compass) have the potential to extend the applications of GNSS into those areas that GPS alone cannot satisfy.  They will also enable the invention of new positioning concepts that will significantly increase the efficiency of positioning for many of today’s applications and generate new ones.  However, for these to happen there are a number of major research problems that need to be solved. This PhD research will contribute to the discovery of how the new signals contribute to enhanced quality (integrity) of positioning, timing and related products. This will involve considering the additional benefit to mutual integrity as a direct result of the additional availability of independent signals and systems.  The focus will primarily be on receiver autonomous integrity monitoring (RAIM) and we will especially attempt to develop more efficient methods of assessing the integrity of integrated navigation solutions that involve carrier phase data from several GNSSs as well as data from other sensors.  The development of such methods is essential if GNSS is to be used for ubiquitous mission (e.g. safety) critical applications.

This is an exciting opportunity for a candidate with (or expecting) a good undergraduate (or equivalent) or Master degree (or equivalent) in any branch of Engineering, Mathematics, Statistics, or Physics. The successful candidate will be based formally at Imperial College London but will be expected to collaborate extensively with the other partners of the ‘New Signals’ consortium.

The studentship is open to all (UK, EU and non-EU) students. It covers the cost of home student tuition fees (£3,300 per annum), and it provides a maintenance stipend of £15,200.

Applicants should send an up to date curriculum vitae, full contact details (including email addresses) of 2 referees (at least one of whom must be an academic) and a one page personal statement to:

Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng

Centre for Transport Studies

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Imperial College London

South Kensington Campus

London SW7 2AZ

E: w.ochieng@imperial.ac.uk

F: +44(0)20-7594-6104

Closing date: 4 February 2010

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