Annual Report 2015/16
Contents 3. What does EI mean? 4. Welcoming Cohort 2 5. Hall of Fame 6. Timeline
Welcome from the Directors The 2015/16 academic year has been extremely busy for our Centre. We have welcomed our second cohort and seen our consortium of academic supervisors and industrial partners grow substantially. We started the year by announcing the appointment of Dr Keith Brown as the new Co-Director of the CDT at Heriot-Watt University. Keith is part of the Sensors, Signals and Systems research group and brought with him a wealth of research and teaching experience.
8. Induction week report 9. Student reports 10. ILM Qualification 11. Conference reports 14. Summer School 15. Siemens – case study 16. What our partners say 17. PhD Spotlight
We have also seen changes at Loughborough University with the introduction of School of Science to the core membership of the Centre. We will be welcoming our first students from the School of Science in cohort 3. The next academic year brings some exciting new developments and opportunities. We will be holding our first student colloquium in November at Heriot-Watt University and will see our first cohort of students graduate with the Institute of Leadership Management in Summer 2017. We want to thank all of our students, supervisors, staff and industrial sponsors for the on-going growth and success of our CDT and look forward to working together this coming year.
18. Looking to 2017 19. Collaborate with us
Editorial Team: Connie Stovell Donna Palmer And with thanks to student contributors
Prof Paul Conway Dr Carmen TorresDirector Sanchez Co-Director
Dr Keith Brown Co-Director
Dr David Flynn Co-Director
What does Embedded Intelligence (EI) mean?
An example of EI: In the automotive sector, there is a need for companies to be able to monitor components throughout their operational lifetimes. RFID technologies can be used to track and trace components throughout the supply chain
Welcoming Cohort 2 to CDT-EI
Adam Kaye Ink-jet Printing Antennas on 3D Curved Surfaces
Melanie Zimmer Multi-agent negotiation strategies for dynamic energy reduction in manufacturing
Athanasios Pouchias RTM Process Monitoring and Predictive Analysis
Rhys Comissiong Finding optimal sensor and actuator configurations
David Czerski Remote sensing and positioning by using Galfenol on remotely powered surface wave acoustic devices
Gajarajan Sivayogan Tribo-dynamic analysis of bevel and hypoid gears
Robert Turnbull Elastohydrodynamic lubrication in pistonring pack assemblies
Ruben Kruiper Development of an ontology in biomimetics using concepts of classical problem solving
Cohort 2 View Biographies
Jamal Umer Lubricantsurface system for IC engines
Tobias Reichold High-speed micro 3D metrology
The year as a timeline Orientation Afternoon ILM module Communicating your research
February
January 2016
Transition Week at The Burn Cohort 2 begin
December
September
ILM Module Enterprise Awareness
Digital Economy CDT Network Writing Retreat Foresight seminar from Baker Hughes VP of Technology, Rustom Mody
Industrial Advisory Board meeting Loughborough University Foresight seminar Niall Skinner, MacTaggart Scott
Foresight seminar Internet of Things Steve Lockwood, IBM
Annual Foresight Lecture Issues and challenges around the IOT vision Dr Saverio Romeo, Beecham research
Open Afternoon at Loughborough University
UK Robotics Week
July
May
April
March
June
Transition Zone session Peer-to-peer coaching
Transition Zone session Dealing with Stakeholders Site visit to 3M Customer Innovation Centre
Foresight seminar EI in energy and buildings Chloe Agg, Cundall
Annual Summer School, in partnership with RNIB College Loughborough
Induction week at The Burn To kick-start the academic year and welcome our new students, we run Transition Week at the end of September. This is an annual retreat to The Burn in Scotland, a Georgian mansion surrounded by 190 acres of ancient woodland, spectacular parkland and gardens. During this week, we focus on the personal and professional skills required to set our students up for the years ahead. It’s also a great chance for the students to be introduced to their new cohort members and learn about who they’ll be working alongside during the programme. Members of cohort 1 joined the new starters to share their experiences from a year with the CDT-EI, showing just how much they’d achieved over their first year. In addition to the formal sessions, a trip to the local castle gave everyone chance to get to know each other better and learn about the local Scottish history.
Living Machines 2016: The opposing views of Biologists and Engineers Cohort 2 researcher Ruber Kruiper attended Living Machines 2016, the 5th International Conference on Biomimetic and Biohybrid Systems, where he presented his paper titled ‘Computer-Aided Biomimetrics’. The paper introduces what is understood by a biomimetics process from a design engineering perspective and proposes several guidelines to partially automate this process. During the talk, one of these guidelines was further elaborated and the concept of ‘function’ in biology was addressed. This subject opened up an interesting discussion that revealed the opposing views of biologists and engineers to this concept, as well as intentionality and sustainability. The conference also included workshops that revolved, amongst others, around bioinspired architecture, robots that adapt their morphology to the environment and the societal economic and ecological impact of biohybrid technologies. View the full article here
Pawel goes Stateside for the ICUAS Cohort 1 researcher Pawel Ladosz attended the International Conference on Unmanned Aerial Systems (ICUAS) in Washington D.C. The event focused on unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and their applications, and included tutorials on agriculture application, UAS design and UAS integration into current airspace and control. Following this, keynote presentations were given from representatives from US Army, NASA and UAS regulators representatives. Pawel presented a paper titled ‘Optimal Positioning of Communication Relay Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in Urban Environments’ during the UAS communication session. The paper showed a method of finding positions of communication relay UASs to improve communications among a group of ground nodes, whilst accounting for the effects of obstacles in an urban environment
Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM) qualification The CDT-EI is an ILM approved centre. As part of the Transition Zone, a unique training programme to accompany and complement the technical skills acquired during the PhD, all CDT-EI students study for the Level 3 Award and Certificate in Leadership and Management over the first two years of the programme, with the option to continue this up to Level 5. The Transition Zone programme aims to nurture the students’ professional skills through three core disciplines: - Leadership - Enterprise and entrepreneurship - Personal business model and career development This facilitates the move into PhD research and subsequent exit as an employable high calibre graduate with a broad set of professional skills.
April 2017 Cohort 1 graduate in Level 3 Award and Certificate in Leadership and Management ILM Specialists in leadership and management development, with 92,000 managers taking an ILM qualification every year
MicroTech 2016 Cohort 2 researcher based at Heriot-Watt University David Czerski attending the International Microelectronics Assembly and Packaging Society (IMAPS) MicroTech 2016 conference on sensors, MEMs and advanced packaging. The conference involved academic as well as industrial exhibitors, displaying test and assembly equipment and discussing future developments. Overall, the conference was a great opportunity to learn about current developments and challenges in the semi-conductor and microelectronic assembly and packaging industry, and offered a chance to meet industry and academic experts to learn their views on the future of the sector. David presents a full report here
TriboUK 2016 Representing CDT-EI, researchers Arturo Martinez-Insua-Rodriguez, Gajarajan Sivayogan, Rob Turnbull and Jamal Umer participated in the TriboUK 2016 conference held at the University of Leeds. Over the course of the conference, the group presented individual posters outlining their PhD projects and faced questions from PhD students from other institutions. Keynote speakers included Professor Daniele Dini who talked about the interdisciplinary nature of tribology, as well as Professor Roger Lewis who discussed finding global feasible methods in removing contaminants on railway lines. Read the team’s full report here
2nd International Summer School on Intelligent Agents in Automation Melanie Zimmer, Cohort 2 researcher, attended the 2nd International Summer School on Intelligent Agents in Automation, held at Linköping University in Sweden. The theme this year was on ‘The 4th International Revolution and the Industrial Internet of Things,’ which was aimed at PhD students discussing intelligent product systems based on their cyber physical formulation. The event included presentations from leading industrial and academic experts from Universities and organisations, and included practical exercises assembling agents. Read Melanie’s full report on the event here
Making the Future: A Pint of Science Joe Holt, Cohort 1 researcher, attended ‘Making the Future’ at the Pint of Science Festival, an annual public engagement festival to bring the latest research to the public in an accessible format. At the event, Joe gave a presentation on ‘Cars on a diet’, exploring the composition of vehicles and methods to make them lighter whilst staying within constraints of safety and functionality. Read Joe’s full report here
9th International Styrian Noise, Vibration and Harshness (ISNVH) Conference Cohort 2 students Robert Turnbull and Gajarajan Sivayogon participated in the 9th International ISNVH Conference, held in Graz, Austria. Accompanied by members of the Loughborough University Dynamics Research Group, they were also invited to AVL LIST GmBH, the industrial partner co-sponsoring the students’ research, for a formal meeting and an opportunity to meet their Austrian colleagues. During the event, presentations were given by keynote speakers, including Dr Offner presenting a paper on “Current challenges and frontiers for the EHD Simulation of Journal Bearings: a review.” The group also received introductory training into the analysis of a simplified piston system, and particularly enjoyed presentations from leading industrial experts from AVL on Vehicle Acoustics. Read the full article here
FutureEverything Workshop, held by Digital Economy Network Cohort 2 researcher Ruben Kruiper attended the FutureEverything Digital Research Outreach and Impact Lab 'Designing effective engagement and communication for research and innovation' workshop organised by the Digital Economy Network. The event was aimed at PhD students carrying out research in a number of areas, including digital, social and creative innovation, “This workshop by FutureEverything, who describe open prototyping as developing and testing a concept or process through input from external contributors, was focused amongst others on identifying the people want to gather information you from. Whether they are end-users, stakeholders or the audience of your research output should determine the way you approach and involve them. By defining how to reach your audience and why you would use certain communication channels, you start reformulating your research into a more concise, understandable manner. All in all, it was an interesting workshop that was attended by PhD students from a variety of backgrounds. It was a pleasure to meet these people from CDTs in Nottingham, Lancaster, Newcastle and Bath.” Ruben Kruiper, Cohort 2 researcher.
CDT-EI Summer School in partnership with RNIB Each year, we bring all of our CDT students together to participate in our annual Summer School, which provides an opportunity for all the student cohorts to meet, work together and learn new skills. At the request of the cohorts, this year the students took part in an ‘embedded intelligence related’ challenge, where they were set the task to develop an aid for the visually impaired.
This event was in partnership with Royal National Institute for Blind People (RNIB) college Loughborough, who provided thoughtprovoking presentations and introduced the challenges those with visual impairments face on a daily basis. Capitalising on their mĂŠlange of skills thanks to the multidisciplinary nature of the CDT-EI, the teams of students spent two days brainstorming and developing a solution, before presenting their final prototype to a panel of judges including representatives and students from RNIB College Loughborough. After great consideration and questioning the prototyping, the panel concluded that the team behind the face recognition app had the most user-centered design, and would allow a real gain in independence. All teams were praised for their sensitive approach to the project, with students Lauren and Kieran from RNIB College Loughborough in particular enjoying putting the final prototypes to the test themselves. Connie Stovell
Read the full article here
Group Research Project led by Siemens Industrial Partner
The Project CDT-EI students at Heriot-Watt University were set a project to design and create an antenna for external partial discharge (PD) sensing. Switchgear includes a range of switching devices and assemblies in power transmission and distribution. In gas insulated switchgear (GIS), all live parts of the system are contained in sulphur hexafluoride gas-tight enclosures. The value and critical function of these assets creates the need for accurate monitoring of switchgear health and detection of faults. This project was carried out in collaboration with Dr David Flynn from Heriot-Watt University and Siemens Transmission and Distribution Ltd, who wanted to invest in a solution to this research area. The Challenge Over the course of three months, the group carried out in-depth research into the optimal antenna design suitable for the monitoring of switchgear health and the detection of faults. The designs were then fabricated into prototypes using facilities at Heriot-Watt University, before carrying out tests on the prototypes at the Siemens GIS test facility. Using a spectrum analyser, fifteen different designs were compared to determine which performed the best. This was then tested against two commercial PD sensors.
Siemens Transmission and Distribution Ltd
CDT-EI Expertise Adrián Ayastuy Rodriguez, Joseph Holt & Dimitris Pantazis
The Outcome The most effective prototype designed by the CDT-EI students outperformed one of the commercial PD sensors, which demonstrates that producing standalone antenna for PD detection if possible using basic materials, even to match the performance of some current pre-calibrated commercial solutions. The students are now continuing this research further in order to improve high-volume manufacture, planar manufacture as well as geometrical optimisation. “I was very impressed with the group leading the project. The output of this research has allowed us to bring a new product closer to sales within our company portfolio.” Graeme Coapes, Siemens
What our Industrial Partners say “I proposed a project which was rather ambitious, largely because of the quality of the students at CDT-EI. The group took ownership of this, and I was really quite astonished at how much they’d achieved over such a short period of time. Rob Lewis, Capability Technology Leader The outcome of the project has been very useful and has stimulated a lot of discussion regarding viability. This research has de-risked many aspects of our future projects.”
“I was very impressed with the group leading the project. We wanted to utilise resources from the CDTEI at Heriot Watt University to look at a particular research area, and the Graeme Coapes, R&D output of this research has allowed us to bring a new product closer to sales within our company portfolio.” Team Leader
“With resources from CDT-EI, we were able to fulfil a research opportunity that was of particular interest to us at Diamond Microwave. The output of the project demonstrates that as a business, we have access to expertise and research. The impact of the project has been significant – we have actually used the findings to win a technical proposal, and we’re hopefully receiving some follow-up work as a result.”
Dr Richard Lang, Managing Director
“The research group got a good grasp of the problem we were interested in very quickly, and completed a sterling piece of work for us. As a result, we have identified a KTP (Knowledge Transfer Partnership) with the University, and Upside Energy is looking forward to what can come out of a longer-term research relationship with the CDT-EI and Heriot-Watt University.”
Graham Oakes Founder and CEO
PhD Spotlight – Tobias Reichold Tobias is a cohort 2 student and his project ‘High speed micro 3D metrology’ is co-sponsored by Renishaw. Renishaw is a world-leading engineering and scientific technology organisation, supplying products and services used in applications from wind turbine manufacture to brain surgery. Expertise lies in precision measurement and healthcare and it is the only UK business designed and making industrial machines which ‘print’ parts from metal powder. What impact will your research have? “The aim of my research is to develop a surface and internal 3D scanning metrology instrument, which has single-shot measurement capabilities, allowing a near instantaneous acquisition of all 3D spatial information. What I am trying to develop has not been done before, and it can’t be done with the current state of technology. Once functional, we will be able to offer a completely new product, to be used as a new measurement instrument for coordinate measurement machines (CMMs), and eventually we plan to develop this technology further. This can then have medical applications thanks to its capabilities of scanning through semi-transparent materials such as skin tissue.” What makes CDT-EI unique for you? “Without a doubt, my project supervisors. We have regular discussions covering progress, problems and plans. The patience and sustained nurturing of the required knowledge is absolutely golden, and the incremental successes from this has led to an incredibly steep learning curve over the last six months in particular.” The programme of study “The programme itself isn’t a traditional PhD programme; you have an additional year at the beginning of the course which is entirely devoted to training, external courses like ILM qualification and attending lectures on modules relevant to the knowledge required for your research. This extra time for me was crucial to becoming a more rounded and high performing researcher, and the guidance in the first year from both my supervisors and both Universities has been outstanding.”
Looking to 2016/17 September 2016 - Welcoming Cohort 3 - Transition week at The Burn - Cohort 1 transition to year 3 - ILM workshop November - Company visits to ST Microelectronics and Cirrus Logic - Industrial advisory board meeting at Heriot Watt University, half day colloquium including student presentations December - ILM module communicating your research
January 2017 - EPSRC mid-term review - Orientation days refreshing topics covered at The Burn as well as introduction of new topics for personal and professional development April - Transition Zone session how to use coaching for performance - Results of the EPSRC mid-term review
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General enquiries Dr Donna Palmer Centre Manager, Loughborough University cdt-ei@lboro.ac.uk
Engage with us @CDT_EI /cdtei
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