PhD Research Studentship – Institute for Research in Applicable Computing
PhD Research Studentship – Institute for Research in Applicable Computing
University of Bedfordshire
(Ref: IRAC1209) Salary: £13,290 per annum
Based: Luton
Closing date: 23 December 2009
Interviews: January 2010
Fixed term: Initially for 2 years for MPhil stage, option to complete a further year for PhD Completion, subject to satisfactory progress
The Institute for Research in Applicable Computing (IRAC) focuses on solving real-world problems by developing novel applications of computer technology and by providing innovative tools to enable users to employ computer technology more efficiently and more effectively. IRAC is also conducting research at the highest level in theoretical computer science and advanced number-theoretic cryptography.
IRAC has three main centres, CREDIT, the Centre for Research in Distributed Technologies, CWiND, the Centre for Wireless Network Design, and CCGV, the Centre for Computer Graphics and Visualisation.
One of research areas of CREDIT is cognitive robotics. The emphasis is on the development of cognitive capabilities for service robots using machine learning techniques. It is considered as one of the key issues of human-robot cooperation and also a “hot” area in AI and robotics. This research is boosted by the Centre’s recent success in the European Commission funding under the IST Programme. This EC-funded project aims to establish the framework for remotely controllable and semi-autonomous service robots to support independent living of senior citizens.
One research studentship, to be supervised by Dr Dayou Li (jointly sponsored by the EC-funded project), is being offered to investigate:
- Typical tasks which meet the elderly’s needs in their daily life, including feature identification, similarity measure establishment (to facilitate an automatic classification), command (in the form of NL) processing interference
- Consciousness of the robots to environmental changes, focusing on unsupervised learning, model adaptation and reasoning mechanism adjustment for fulfilling the tasks
- Recognition of safety-critical situations due to environmental changes.
The bursary research student may be required to put aside one day per week for related teaching or research as directed by their Head of Department.
Further information about the bursary and an application form can be obtained from the Research Graduate School (quoting the Reference Number), rgsoffice@beds.ac.uk.
