Undergraduate Final Year Project Proposals: 2014 - 2015 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400879 Astolfi,A. 1110A The problem of sharing the control of a system between a human operator and an automatic controller is considered. The goal of the project is to design a shared control algorithm for a simple mobile robot, or similar autonomous vehicle, and test it via simulations. Shared control 1400863 3E3I Evangelou,S.A. Parametric modelling, control and optimisation of hybrid vehicles - converter control 1108B 4D4T4J The objective of this project is to develop a simulation model that will describe accurately the dynamics of a hybrid vehicle. The task involves the modelling of the individual subsystems of the vehicle and its powertrain. A key issue is the accurate description of the interdependencies between the subsystems which will allow proper integration to the full model. The modelling problem is naturally multidisciplinary. Key characteristics of the model are descriptions for the hybrid-electric drive powertrain, regenerative braking, vehicle dynamics, aerodynamics, driver and component- and vehicle-level controls. It is believed that existing platforms do not yet include sufficiently detailed component descriptions to allow the model to be used for the purposes to which it is built. These include to help identify which aspects of the design need to be modified for optimal overall performance and also to improve performance by designing good control schemes. This project will aim to develop flexible subsystem models in the form of equations derived from first principles, rather than models that rely on static look-up tables and performance maps, or simple power-request dynamics that do not allow for accurate scaling or for the adjustment of critical design parameters. A number of projects ran successfully in previous years within this framework but further work is required especially on the control of the DC link that connects the various electrical components of the powertrain of a series hybrid vehicle - generator (rectifier), battery (dc-dc converter) and motor (inverter). 1400864 Evangelou,S.A. Active variable geometry suspension for road vehicles 1108B 4T Variable geometry suspension systems for vehicles operate on the principle of varying by an actuator the geometry of passive force-producing elements, conventionally springs and dampers. They are of interest in terms of their potential to achieve performances close to ideal active suspensions but without giving away many of the benefits enjoyed by passive systems. Thus variable geometry implies low actuation forces, low power requirements, low energy consumption, fail-safe operation and potential to use much of the existing passive technology. This project will look into the application of fuzzy logic and neural network control for a variable geometry active suspension of a high performance sports car, to improve vehicle comfort and handling. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 1 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400865 Evangelou,S.A. 1108B The prediction of rider intention is very much essential for the supervisory energy control system in a modern small twowheeled vehicle. As these type of vehicles are predominantly used for personal commuting in urban scenarios, it is essential to recognise the effect of uncertainties caused by traffic and road conditions. Such conditions can influence the intentions of the rider, therefore these need to be identified from at least partial knowledge of the vehicle dynamic state, to manage optimally the powertrain energy flow. Prediction of rider intention for a two-wheeled vehicle based on limited on-board information 4D4T4J Research available in the literature has considered various approaches for predicting the driving load: a) Combined cascade neural networks with node decoupled extended Kalman filtering b) Discrete cosine transform (DCT) together with support vector machines (SVM) c) Combining road information from a static map with historical driving data d) Model based approach using discrete time Markov process In the first part of project, the methods mentioned above for driving load predictions will be implemented and compared for accuracy and real time implementation. In the second part of the project, data mining techniques will be explored to propose driving load prediction functions that are simpler to implement. The knowledge gained in the initial part of the project will be applied in developing this predictive function. 1401041 Evangelou,S.A. Prediction of rider intention for a two-wheeled vehicle based on limited on-board information 1108B 1C1S The prediction of rider intention is very much essential for the supervisory energy control system in a modern small twowheeled vehicle. As these type of vehicles are predominantly used for personal commuting in urban scenarios, it is essential to recognise the effect of uncertainties caused by traffic and road conditions. Such conditions can influence the intentions of the rider, therefore these need to be identified from at least partial knowledge of the vehicle dynamic state, to manage optimally the powertrain energy flow. Research available in the literature has considered various approaches for predicting the driving load: a) Combined cascade neural networks with node decoupled extended Kalman filtering b) Discrete cosine transform (DCT) together with support vector machines (SVM) c) Combining road information from a static map with historical driving data d) Model based approach using discrete time Markov process In the first part of project, the methods mentioned above for driving load predictions will be implemented and compared for accuracy and real time implementation. In the second part of the project, data mining techniques will be explored to propose driving load prediction functions that are simpler to implement. The knowledge gained in the initial part of the project will be applied in developing this predictive function. 1401043 Evangelou,S.A. Active flap control for the Racing Green electric vehicle (EV3) 10 February 2015 1108B 1C This project will look into the active flap control for the new Racing Green electric vehicle (EV3). The vehicle will have an extensive aero package, therefore it is hoped to introduce some active flap control to improve handling on corners and reduce drag on straights. It is expect that this will be mainly a control problem, possibly using feedback from the suspension travel/downforce sensors in the chassis. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 2 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401154 Evangelou,S.A. 1108B At Daimler research and development a future steering system is being developed within the department Vehicle Dynamics. The steering system is required to improve the comfort, safety and driving behaviour. The Electric power steering (EPS) system is used as an actuator for a number of assistance systems' control tasks which are dependent on the vehicle behaviour. These dependencies will be additionally coupled with the vehicle speed and driver inputs. The goal is to describe the various vehicle behaviours and with this basis, consider the development of various control strategies for the EPS itself. To aid in this task Daimler has a 4 pole steering test rig and would like to use HILs setup to develop and test these control strategies using an actual Mercedes steering system. Hardware-in-the-loop simulation and control of a Mercedes electric power steering system 1400868 Evangelou,S.A. (with ) Torque vectoring and regeneration control for the Racing Green electric vehicle (EV3) 1400869 Evangelou,S.A. (with ) Active flap control for the Racing Green electric vehicle (EV3) 1400880 Jaimoukha,I.M. Online fault detection 1A1C1S 1108B 4D4T4J 1108B 4D4T4J 1113 4D4T4J This project will look into the torque vectoring and regeneration control for the new Racing Green electric vehicle (EV3). The vehicle is planned to be a rear wheel drive electric vehicle with independent drive to each rear wheel. The project will look at the control strategies (and develop software/simulations) to demonstrate the potential benefits of using torque vectoring and regeneration control. This project will look into the active flap control for the new Racing Green electric vehicle (EV3). The vehicle will have an extensive aero package, therefore it is hoped to introduce some active flap control to improve handling on corners and reduce drag on straights. It is expect that this will be mainly a control problem, possibly using feedback from the suspension travel/downforce sensors in the chassis. This project aims to investigate fault detection schemes for linear dynamic systems subject to disturbances. The aim of the project is to develop and compare both online and offline optimization algorithms for the design of a condition monitoring system that attenuates the disturbances and is able to reliably detect faults. The student is expected to have a good background in optimization. All programs will be developed in Matlab and Simulink. 1400882 Jaimoukha,I.M. Invariant sets for model predictive control 1113 4D4T4J Model predictive control is an advanced control scheme that is model-based, applied in real time, incorporates optimal control and can handel hard inout and state constraints. A drawback of the method is the need to solve an online optimization problem to compute the control law at every sampling instant. The aim of the project is to compute an invariant set such that, if the state of the system is inside this set (so that on the one hand, the system is near the desired equilibrium, and on the other, it is guaranteed to remain in the set) then a constant precomputed state-feedback control law is applied and there is no need to carry out any extra online optimizations. The project uses robust control theory techniques, linear matrix inequalities and game theoretic approaches. All algorithms will be developed using Matlab and Simulink. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 3 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400925 Junyent-Ferre,A. 1103 Three-phase AC to DC voltage-source converters (VSCs) are one of the basic building blocks found in a range of high-power applications, e.g. photovoltaic inverters, industrial motor drives, etc. In current practice, either the AC side or the DC side of the converter are grounded. This enables to balance the DC pole voltages around earth potential by passive means with ease. However, new applications of DC transmission at high, medium and low voltage have recently raised interest in converter topologies which enable to actively control the DC voltage balance. This would enable degraded operation when one conductor is faulty or when loads were connected between a single pole and the earth. This project will focus on the design of the controller for a three-phase inverter for a DC transmission applications with DC imbalance operation capabilities. Control of a DC transmission system with active DC imbalance operation 4T This project is suitable for students with high motivation to learn about power converter modelling, simulation and control design. 1401048 Kerrigan,E.C. Optimal control of energyefficient real-time computing systems 1401173 Kerrigan,E.C. Optimal control of computation, communication and energy in networks of robots 10 February 2015 1108C 1A1C1S 1108C 3E3I Every computing system employs feedback algorithms in order to guarantee performance and reliability in the presence of uncertainty, such as unpredictable work-loads, delays, data losses, cyber attacks and component failures. Data, tasks and resources (processors, storage and communication bandwidth) need to be managed to achieve a certain quality of service, guarantee that computations are correct and ensure that tasks are completed before deadlines. Energy consumption is optimized by dynamic voltage and frequency scaling and smart scheduling of jobs. The aim of this project is to achieve one or more of the following objectives: (i) develop methods for modeling computing systems that capture the dynamics essential for feedback algorithm design using closed-loop metrics; (ii) develop efficient optimization-based algorithms for hard and soft realtime scheduling of tasks; (iii) develop scalable scheduling algorithms based on cooperative distributed control methods. The project will start with existing methods for scheduling tasks on single processors, before gradually extending the methods to distributed networks of heterogeneous processors. Most of the initial software development will be in Matlab, but the student should have excellent software engineering skills and familiarity with a variety of operating systems and programming languages, including Unix/Linux and C/C++. Candidates for this project will have done courses on state space control systems and numerical methods, have a strong interest in mathematical optimization and the goal of pursuing a career in computing and information systems, big data, cloud computing, sensor networks, mobile communication networks or robotics. The energy required for on-board computation and inter-node communication can exceed the propulsion energy for networks of low-power robots or aerodynamically efficient uninhabited aerial vehicles (UAVs). Future UAV and ground-based robotic networks will be expected to be far more autonomous and intelligent than today, hence will require even more energy for computation. This project will therefore develop new control, signal processing and mathematical optimization algorithms for coordinating networks of robots to explore a given area, while minimising the energy used for computation, communication and propulsion. Compared to using existing algorithms, these new methods will be able to extend the mission duration or allow for cheaper robots to be used. The project will start with two-node networks with point-mass models and off-the-shelf optimization software. This will be extended to more realistic dynamic models and multiple-node networks with efficient algorithms and tailormade software. Most of the initial software development will be in Matlab, but the student should have excellent software engineering skills and familiarity with a variety of operating systems and programming languages, including Unix/Linux and C/C++. Candidates for this project will have done courses on state space control systems and numerical methods, have a strong interest in mathematical optimization and the goal of pursuing a career in aerospace, computing and information systems, big data, cloud computing, sensor networks, mobile communication networks or robotics. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 4 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401174 Kerrigan,E.C. 1108C Every computing system employs feedback algorithms in order to guarantee performance and reliability in the presence of uncertainty, such as unpredictable work-loads, delays, data losses, cyber attacks and component failures. Data, tasks and resources (processors, storage and communication bandwidth) need to be managed to achieve a certain quality of service, guarantee that computations are correct and ensure that tasks are completed before deadlines. Energy consumption is optimized by dynamic voltage and frequency scaling and smart scheduling of jobs. The aim of this project is to achieve one or more of the following objectives: (i) develop methods for modeling computing systems that capture the dynamics essential for feedback algorithm design using closed-loop metrics; (ii) develop efficient optimization-based algorithms for hard and soft realtime scheduling of tasks; (iii) develop scalable scheduling algorithms based on cooperative distributed control methods. The project will start with existing methods for scheduling tasks on single processors, before gradually extending the methods to distributed networks of heterogeneous processors. Most of the initial software development will be in Matlab, but the student should have excellent software engineering skills and familiarity with a variety of operating systems and programming languages, including Unix/Linux and C/C++. Candidates for this project will have done courses on state space control systems and numerical methods, have a strong interest in mathematical optimization and the goal of pursuing a career in computing and information systems, big data, cloud computing, sensor networks, mobile communication networks or robotics. Optimal control of energyefficient real-time computing systems 1400889 Kuenzel,S.T.G.I. (with Pal,B.C.) Validation of linearization method used by Matlab vs. Algebraic solution technique 1400915 Mitcheson,P.D. Semiconductor device health monitoring 3E3I 1107 4D4T4J 1112 4D4T4J Motivation The project investigates the accuracy of linearization methods implemented in Matlab/Simulink. In the past perturbation methods were used by programs such as Matlab/Simulink to linearize the algebraic differential equations of a dynamic system. Since these methods suffer from errors due to signal scaling, recent Matlab/Simulink versions used pre-programmed Jacobians to circumvent the problem. Objective The aim is to compare and validate the linearized solution of a system with synchronous and wind generation and AC and DC transmission using Matlab/Simulink with the algebraic solution of the same algebraic differential equations. Methodology This project will be able to build on previous work, which should enable a good progress. The system will be modelled in Matlab/Simulink and linearized using Matlab’s linmod. The same system is represented by differential and algebraic equations in Maple, which can be linearized analytically. Learning outcome The project will use Matlab/Simulink and Maple, which are very useful tools for any student to get familiar with. The student will gain a good understanding of different techniques used for linearization. Power electronics is generally a reliable technology, but in some circumstances, reliability needs to improve because the cost to fix things or schedule maintenance is very high - eg wind turbines, HVDC converters. This project will aim to implement an intelligent gate drive that monitors device status for degradation such as increased onstate resistance, changes in capacitance etc, which may be indicative of device failure. Good circuit design skills and an understanding of devices and instrumentation are required. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 5 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400932 Mitcheson,P.D. (with Clerckx,B.) 1112 Wireless sensor network (WSN) has attracted a lot of attention in various machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as smart home networking, smart metering, and healthcare due to its low deployment costs coupled with a high potential to sense and collect object-oriented data through a large number of cheap wireless sensor nodes. One of the main challenges in WSN is that nodes are resource-constrained, mainly due to battery limitation. To enable autonomous wireless devices, the project will investigate the feasibility of wireless power transfer. While receiver design for wireless power transfer has been relatively well researched, the design of suitable waveforms is much less known. In the project, the student will investigate how the waveform design influences the performance of wireless power transfer and identify suitable waveforms. The student will get the opportunity to progressively get familiar with the latest research in wireless communications, RF design and power transfer, discuss and imagine the basic concepts of next generation wireless power networks. Waveform Design for Wireless Power Transfer 3E3I Skills required: strong interests in communication/signal processing and RF design, algorithm development, analysis, simulations, RF measurement, matlab and PSpice programming The following references are helpful: • A. S. Boaventura and N. B. Carvalho, “Maximizing DC Power in Energy Harvesting Circuits Using Multisine Excitation,” 2011 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (MTT). • M. Pinuela, P. Mitcheson and S. Lucyszyn, “Ambient RF energy harvesting in urban and semi-urban environments” IEEE Trans. on microwave theory and techniques, vol 61, no 7, july 2013. • J. Park and B. Clerckx, “Joint Wireless Information and Energy Transfer in a Two-User MIMO Interference Channel,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 12, no. 8, pp. 4210–4221, Aug. 2013. 1400913 Mitcheson,P.D. (with Yates,D.C.) Charge your phone in your pocket 1112 4T Wireless power transfer is now available via the Qi standard for charging phones, but only over very short distances on charging pads. The project will look at the possibility of charging a phone in your pocket as you sit as your office desk. The project will require knowledge of electromagnetics, devices and circuit design skills, an interest in high frequency power electronics design and ability to do analysis both on paper and in Matlab. Circuit simulation skills are also a must. Due to commercial activity surrounding this work (in which the student will be able to engage though the Imperial spin out, Drayson Wireless), the student will be required to sign an NDA and IP agreement. Please talk to me for more details. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 6 of 39 PID Supervisor Room 1400908 Pal,B.C. 1104 Description Motivation A Stochastic Method for the Operation of Active Distribution Networks 4D4T The penetration of distributed generators (DGs) in distribution networks could improve the system efficiency, reliability and security. Nevertheless, they could impact the system voltage, power quality, fault level and interact with the operation of capacitors and voltage regulators. The intermittency and variability of renewable DGs (e.g., wind and PV) impose challenges when operating distribution systems. Objective A stochastic method for the operation of active distribution network under active management schemes such as coordinated voltage control and adaptive power factor control is proposed in order to evaluate the active and reactive power of renewable and non-renewable DGs considering 1) uncertainties related to solar irradiance and load demand, 2) different operational status of DGs (multi-configurations), and 3) capability curve of PV inverters. Total costs are composed of active and reactive cost of renewable and non-renewable DGs and active power losses cost and the cost of imported/exported power from/to the grid. Methodology The simulation software can be MATLAB or GAMS. The first step is gathering load data, renewable and non-renewable DGs and a real distribution network data. The second step is formulating the problem and implementing it in one of the above mentioned softwares. Learning outcome Programming in MATLAB or GAMS can be a great learning experience and understanding the challenges of distribution systems operation with integration of renewable DGs. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 7 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400909 Pal,B.C. 1104 Motivation A Deterministic Method for the Planning of Active Distribution Networks 4D4T Under a passive network scheme, distributed generators (DGs) are usually operated with fixed power factors and on-load-tapchangers (OLTCs) are limited to only regulate the secondary voltages while the emerging active network management schemes have proved to be beneficial for distribution network operators (DNOs) compared to passive network management. Owing to the increasing trend toward integrating more DGs in transmission and distribution networks, the planning scope of maximizing DG penetration is taking the priority of DNOs in most countries. Objective A deterministic multi-objective multi-period multi-configuration method in active distribution networks under active management schemes such as coordinated voltage control and adaptive power factor control is proposed. The multi-objective method simultaneously minimizes the total cost and the total active power losses of the transmission lines from the point of view of DNOs in order to assess the active and reactive power of renewable and non-renewable DGs and active power losses of the lines considering 1) variability of load demand and wind generation profiles (multi-period scenarios), 2) different operational status of DGs (multi-configurations), 3) demand response (demand control) and 4) capability curve of doubly fed induction generator (DFIG) of wind turbines. Total costs are composed of active and reactive cost of renewable and non-renewable DGs, cost of load demand control and active power losses cost. Methodology The method can be implemented in MATLAB or GAMS. The first stage is gathering the data of load, renewable and nonrenewable DGs and a real distribution network. Second stage is formulating the problem and implementing it in the above mentioned software. Learning outcome Programming in MATLAB or GAMS can be a great learning experience and understanding the challenges of distribution systems planning with integration of renewable DGs. 1400889 Pal,B.C. (with Kuenzel,S.T.G.I.) Validation of linearization method used by Matlab vs. Algebraic solution technique 10 February 2015 1104 4D4T4J Motivation The project investigates the accuracy of linearization methods implemented in Matlab/Simulink. In the past perturbation methods were used by programs such as Matlab/Simulink to linearize the algebraic differential equations of a dynamic system. Since these methods suffer from errors due to signal scaling, recent Matlab/Simulink versions used pre-programmed Jacobians to circumvent the problem. Objective The aim is to compare and validate the linearized solution of a system with synchronous and wind generation and AC and DC transmission using Matlab/Simulink with the algebraic solution of the same algebraic differential equations. Methodology This project will be able to build on previous work, which should enable a good progress. The system will be modelled in Matlab/Simulink and linearized using Matlab’s linmod. The same system is represented by differential and algebraic equations in Maple, which can be linearized analytically. Learning outcome The project will use Matlab/Simulink and Maple, which are very useful tools for any student to get familiar with. The student will gain a good understanding of different techniques used for linearization. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 8 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400891 Pal,B.C. (with Singh,A.) 1104 Motivation: An increased penetration of new renewable sources of energy into power systems requires that the reliability and stability of the system is not compromised by this penetration. Solar and wind energy form a chief component of these sources; but as these sources are highly intermittent, non-deterministic and stochastic in nature, it is very difficult to either analyze or control the negative effects that they can have on system reliability and stability. A fundamental step towards addressing this issue is dynamically identifying the equivalent parameters of a wind farm or a solar park, which can then be utilized for further estimation and control purposes. This project studies this identification problem, focusing specifically on a wind farm. Dynamic parameter estimation of a wind farm connected to a large scale power system 4D4T Objective: The aim of this project is to study and develop algorithms and methods for dynamic parameter estimation of a wind farm (comprising hundreds of wind turbines) which is connected to a large scale power system. These dynamic parameters can be the equivalent inertia, damping coefficient or reactance of the wind farm. The student can also suggest and estimate some other relevant dynamic parameters. Methodology: The student would develop large scale models for both a generic power system and a wind farm, integrate the two models and perform simulations to get voltage and power measurements from the wind farm for various scenarios of wind input. These measurements would then be utilized for parameter estimation utilizing old/novel stochastic filtering and stochastic signal processing techniques. The estimated parameters will be compared with actual parameters for the all the simulated scenarios and conclusions will be reported. Matlab and DigSilent are suggested software for model development and simulation. Learning outcome: Successful completion of the project would give the student an in-depth understanding of the working of a power system. The student will also acquire a thorough knowledge of how a wind farm works. Model development and simulation will provide him a good understanding of differential and algebraic equations and their implementation through coding in the selected software. In all, this project will not only be an enriching research experience for the student, it will also benefit the power systems community by providing a possible solution to a real and challenging problem. 1401107 Pal,B.C. (with Singh,A.) Eliminating phasor measurement units (PMUs) from the decentralized dynamic state estimation (DSE) algorithm 1104 1C Motivation: The decentralized DSE algorithm for power systems relies on PMU measurements for the estimation process. The reason for this is that both magnitude and phase information of voltage and current signals are required in the filtering equations. PMUs provide the phase information using GPS synchronization, and hence the DSE algorithm relies heavily on GPS synchronization. This is not very desirable as DSE would fail if GPS synchronization fails. A challenging and very useful extension to this method would involve finding a technique which only requires voltage and current magnitudes and other locally measurable quantities which do not require GPS synchronization. Objective: The aim of this project is to study and develop algorithms and methods for decentralized DSE using the analog measurements which are directly available from current transformers (CTs) and potential transformers (PTs) and do not require PMUs. Methodology: The student would develop model for a large scale generic power system and implement decentralized DSE on this model using techniques which are already available in the power system literature. The student would then look for ways and means of extracting the phase information from the analog measurements from CTs and PTs and use this information to eliminate PMUs from the DSE algorithm, thereby developing a new algorithm. Estimated states will be compared for both the new and old methods for the all simulated scenarios and conclusions will be reported. Matlab and DigSilent are suggested software for model development and simulation. Learning outcome: Successful completion of the project would give the student an in-depth understanding of the working of a power system and its dynamic state estimation. Model development and simulation will provide him a good understanding of differential and algebraic equations and their implementation through coding in the selected software. The student would also learn advanced techniques of filtering and estimation. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 9 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400897 Parisini,T. 1114 The project deals with the problem of diagnosing faults and malfunctions that act as "drifts" in the measured physical quantities provided by sensors in process control systems encountered in industry. The specific goal of this project concerns the formulation of the diagnosis problem in a linear and a nonlinear context, the development of suitable algorithms and the simulation evaluation on an industrial benchmark. Extension to distributed faults is possible Diagnosis of drift faults in sensors of industrial processes 1400898 Parisini,T. Multiple sinusoidal estimation in sensor noisy measurements 1400899 Parisini,T. Multi-sinusoidal adaptive repetitive control 1400891 Singh,A. (with Pal,B.C.) Dynamic parameter estimation of a wind farm connected to a large scale power system 4D4T 1114 4D4T 1114 4D4T 1105 4D4T The project deals with estimating the characteristic of multiple sinusoidal signals in measurements affected by noise, bias and drifts. The application context is the one of health monitoring in mechanical systems. In the project, a suitable problem formulation has to be addressed, specific algorithms have to be devised and simulation evaluation has to be carried out. The project deals with designing an adaptive control scheme based on a repetitive control approach. In particular, a control system affected by multiple-sinusoidal disturbances has to be considered. An estimator of the characteristics of these disturbances has to be developed and the analysis of the behaviour when connected with the repetitive controller has to be carried out. Simulations showing the performance of the overall adaptive system have to be developed as well. Motivation: An increased penetration of new renewable sources of energy into power systems requires that the reliability and stability of the system is not compromised by this penetration. Solar and wind energy form a chief component of these sources; but as these sources are highly intermittent, non-deterministic and stochastic in nature, it is very difficult to either analyze or control the negative effects that they can have on system reliability and stability. A fundamental step towards addressing this issue is dynamically identifying the equivalent parameters of a wind farm or a solar park, which can then be utilized for further estimation and control purposes. This project studies this identification problem, focusing specifically on a wind farm. Objective: The aim of this project is to study and develop algorithms and methods for dynamic parameter estimation of a wind farm (comprising hundreds of wind turbines) which is connected to a large scale power system. These dynamic parameters can be the equivalent inertia, damping coefficient or reactance of the wind farm. The student can also suggest and estimate some other relevant dynamic parameters. Methodology: The student would develop large scale models for both a generic power system and a wind farm, integrate the two models and perform simulations to get voltage and power measurements from the wind farm for various scenarios of wind input. These measurements would then be utilized for parameter estimation utilizing old/novel stochastic filtering and stochastic signal processing techniques. The estimated parameters will be compared with actual parameters for the all the simulated scenarios and conclusions will be reported. Matlab and DigSilent are suggested software for model development and simulation. Learning outcome: Successful completion of the project would give the student an in-depth understanding of the working of a power system. The student will also acquire a thorough knowledge of how a wind farm works. Model development and simulation will provide him a good understanding of differential and algebraic equations and their implementation through coding in the selected software. In all, this project will not only be an enriching research experience for the student, it will also benefit the power systems community by providing a possible solution to a real and challenging problem. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 10 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401107 Singh,A. (with Pal,B.C.) 1105 Motivation: The decentralized DSE algorithm for power systems relies on PMU measurements for the estimation process. The reason for this is that both magnitude and phase information of voltage and current signals are required in the filtering equations. PMUs provide the phase information using GPS synchronization, and hence the DSE algorithm relies heavily on GPS synchronization. This is not very desirable as DSE would fail if GPS synchronization fails. A challenging and very useful extension to this method would involve finding a technique which only requires voltage and current magnitudes and other locally measurable quantities which do not require GPS synchronization. Eliminating phasor measurement units (PMUs) from the decentralized dynamic state estimation (DSE) algorithm 1C Objective: The aim of this project is to study and develop algorithms and methods for decentralized DSE using the analog measurements which are directly available from current transformers (CTs) and potential transformers (PTs) and do not require PMUs. Methodology: The student would develop model for a large scale generic power system and implement decentralized DSE on this model using techniques which are already available in the power system literature. The student would then look for ways and means of extracting the phase information from the analog measurements from CTs and PTs and use this information to eliminate PMUs from the DSE algorithm, thereby developing a new algorithm. Estimated states will be compared for both the new and old methods for the all simulated scenarios and conclusions will be reported. Matlab and DigSilent are suggested software for model development and simulation. Learning outcome: Successful completion of the project would give the student an in-depth understanding of the working of a power system and its dynamic state estimation. Model development and simulation will provide him a good understanding of differential and algebraic equations and their implementation through coding in the selected software. The student would also learn advanced techniques of filtering and estimation. 1400913 Yates,D.C. (with Mitcheson,P.D.) Charge your phone in your pocket 308 4T Wireless power transfer is now available via the Qi standard for charging phones, but only over very short distances on charging pads. The project will look at the possibility of charging a phone in your pocket as you sit as your office desk. The project will require knowledge of electromagnetics, devices and circuit design skills, an interest in high frequency power electronics design and ability to do analysis both on paper and in Matlab. Circuit simulation skills are also a must. Due to commercial activity surrounding this work (in which the student will be able to engage though the Imperial spin out, Drayson Wireless), the student will be required to sign an NDA and IP agreement. Please talk to me for more details. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 11 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400954 Bouganis,C. 904 Solving an overdetermined system of linear equations or computing the residuals of the system is a very common problem in many scientific fields, including difficult problems in computational statistics (e.g. statistical genetics). An overdetermined system of linear equations is represented by the following equation: AB = Y where A (m x n) and Y (m x k) are known matrices, B (n x k) is unknown and m > n (overdetermined). We either want to solve the system (i.e. find the B that minimizes Y - XB) or find the residuals of the system (i.e. the value of Y - XB when B is the solution). Both problems can be solved using a linear algebra method called QR decomposition. When the dimensions of the problem (m, n and k) are large and there are a lot of systems to solve (such as in big-data applications in genetics), we typically have to use parallel hardware to accelerate computations. GPU libraries like Nvidia's CULA provide routines for QR decomposition and other necessary operations. Nevertheless, CULA routines achieve peak performance only for square matrices and process each system separately. This leads to under-utilization of the GPU device when the matrix A is tall-skinny (m >> n) or when there are thousands of medium-sized systems to solve (which have to be processed sequentially). This project aims at developing a new versatile GPU library which overcomes these limitations and will allow us to efficiently tackle systems of any size as well as multiple problems in parallel. The student will base his or her work on existing CULA routines and routines from the CAQR library (specialized for tall-skinny problems). The main directions of the project will be: High performance, adaptive GPU library for computation of residuals of linear systems with varying matrix dimensions 1A 1)Develop code for solving systems and finding residuals which will be able to pick the best routine (between CPU and multiple GPU implementations) depending on the system's dimensions and the shape of A (square or tall-skinny). 2)Explore ways in which many small or medium-sized systems (either with different A matrices or different Y matrices or both) can be solved in parallel by designing new GPU kernels or by streaming many kernels into the GPU using the related CUDA functionality. 3)Optimize auxiliary computations and procedures (e.g. matrix multiplications, data transfers) to improve speed. Skills required: 1)Basic familiarity with parallel programming concepts and techniques. GPU programming and CUDA knowledge are a plus but not required. Expected acquired skills: 1)Experience with GPU programming, CUDA programming and its toolflow used on a real-world problem 2)Familiarity with widely used linear algebra techniques, their pros and cons and issues regarding their implementation on GPUs and CPUs 3)Research experience and contribution to the group's output. The results of the project will be used in real genetic problems research and will likely lead to a publication. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 12 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401156 Constandinou,T. 901 Meet to discuss. 901 Implantable medical devices typically employ transcutaneous (i.e. through the skin) telemetries to transmit power and data (inductively), thus avoiding the risk of infection due to breaching the skin barrier. The implanted device(s) however use wired connections between multi-module implants. Examples include: deep brain stimulators (DBS) for Parkinson's/dystonia/essential tremor, cochlear implants for hearing, etc. A key challenge in ALL such systems is the mechanical reliability of interconnects in general fewer wires are preferable. Full Custom IC Design Project 2 1400849 1A Constandinou,T. (with Liu,Y.) 2-wire Power/Data Interface for Implantable Medical Devices 4T This project aims to develop a new 2-wire interface for communicating between a neural (brain) implant (inside the skull) and a processing unit (situated in the chest cavity). The interface should implement full-duplex (simultaneous bidirectional) communication of up to 1Mbps, with error detection/correction, and recover a reference clock, power supply, and bias references within the neural implant module. An additional requirement is that several modules can share this communication interface, i.e. can be connected and are addressible in parallel. Key challenges are: (1) there must be no static electric field (i.e. no DC), (2) electronics must occupy a minimal volume (minimal components), (3) minimal power dissipation. This project will firstly develop new concepts for this 2-wire protocol and implement these in a prototype (hardware) demonstrator. It is expected that any novel contributions will be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals/conferences. Ideal student background: good practical ability required - familiarity and experience with microcontrollers, embedded programming, analogue and digital electronics, PCB design, communication methods and protocols, power management/regulation. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 13 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400850 Constandinou,T. (with Liu,Y.) 901 Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs) are a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device. BMIs are often directed at assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. 4T Calibration-free Real-time Neural Spike Streaming Implanted BMIs use tiny electrodes inserted into the tissue to monitor the spiking activity of individual neurons (action potentials) or local populations of neurons (local field potentials). However, the observed recordings vary from electrode to electrode (both in signal amplitude and background noise level), and may change over time. In order to effectively utilise these recordings, amplifier gains and analogue to digital converter resolutions are currently individually tuned (manually) such as to maximise the useful dynamic range. Future BMIs will have 1000s of channels to decode our thoughts and provide useful information for controlling external devices, for example, prosthetic limbs, computers, etc. It is however unpractical to individually manually calibrate each channel to the observed signal dynamics, particularly as these change over time. Future BMIs will therefore have to adapt and self calibrate to the signal dynamics. This project will develop a computationally-efficient (i.e. minimal computation and memory) adaptive algorithm to effectively detect these spike signals without needing any calibration. The algorithm will then be implemented in an ultra low power embedded platform to demonstrate real-time adaptive spike streaming. This will then be used by a research team based at Imperial that is implementing a multi-channel BMI implant chip. It is expected that any novel contributions will additionally be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals/conferences. Ideal student background: strong in Matlab and C, good experience required with microcontrollers and embedded programming. 1400996 Constantinides,G.A. (with Levine,J.M.) Temperature and voltage characterisation of devices 912 4D4T4J The performance and lifetime of an integrated circuit is dependent upon operating and environmental conditions, which include temperature and supply voltage. To produce reliable devices it is important to characterise behaviour under all scenarios that are likely to be encountered in the field. The information can be used to develop techniques for making circuits more efficient, better performing and more reliable. This project will design an experimental rig for precisely and safely controlling the voltage and temperature of a circuit-undertest. An API will enable the hardware to be easily controlled by a top-level experiment procedure . The rig will then be used to carry out an investigation into performance and reliability in FPGA devices. The project will feature both hardware and software development and encompasses aspects from mechanical components all the way up to a potential web interface . Thus it can be adapted to fit a student's skills, though for high marks I would like to see a fully-integrated, vertical solution that could be released under an open-source license for use by the research community. To demonstrate its usefulness, the system could be used to carry out (and possibly publish the results of) accelerated life testing or statistical characterisation of devices. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 14 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400958 Constantinides,G.A. (with Stott,E.) 912 The power consumed by a digital circuit is dependent upon a number of parameters, including supply voltage, switching activity and leakage current. It is easy to measure the overall power but how can we get a breakdown of the proportion of power used by different parts of the circuit? Knowing this would allow us to optimise operation of complex systems-on-chips to improve efficiency. Power measurement breakdown in digital logic 4D4T4J This project will find out if it is possible to estimate power consumption in digital circuits by probing a small proportion of the internal and external signals and analysing the statistical properties of the trace that is returned. The main skills required are digital circuit design with hardware description languages and data analysis. Generating some indicative results should be straightforward, but to achieve high marks the candidate could consider how the probe locations could be selected while the circuit is being designed and produce tools that would automate the process. 1400952 Drane,T. (with Thomas,D.B.) Constrained Input Domain Synthesis 1A1C1S This is an industrially led research project that addresses the observation that within deep arithmetic pipelines there may be redundant hardware; for example there may be branches which are actually never entered, variables which are constant, or stuck at bit, all regardless of which inputs enter the pipeline. It is also common that the set of possible inputs to the pipeline is restricted i.e. has a constrained input domain. Synthesis tools don’t optimise these redundancies, but exploiting these opportunities can provide significant hardware quality improvements. The idea is that one could hook up a verification and synthesis tools to discover these situations and thus automatically 'scrub' code of dead branches and logic. This project would suit students with either experience or an interest in RTL (VHDL/Verilog), synthesis and/or verification. This project will involve working with an industrial researcher (as well as the supervisor). 1400953 Drane,T. (with Thomas,D.B.) Power Estimation of RTL 1A1C1S Power measurement of RTL typically requires long simulations, using tools with very expensive licenses usage, so it would be preferable if analytic probabilities could be calculated for switching information. Techniques do exist which attempt to perform this task but require further research in order to allow tools which deliver usable results on industrial strength benchmarks in a reasonable time. This project will look into the use of BDDs and interval arithmetic, in order to try to develop such tools. This project would suit students interested in the fundamentals of digital logic synthesis, with good mathematical skills, decent programming skills (in any language, matlab is fine), and some knowledge of RTL simulation. This project will involve working with an industrial researcher (as well as the supervisor). 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 15 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401079 Georgiou,P. (with Constantinides,A.G.) 902 The area of blind channel equalisation has received considerable attention over the years. The major direction has been based on the use of either higher order statistical signal properties and/or multiple sensors which serve to diversify signals. The rather demanding area of a Single-Input-Single-Output (SISO) system has received little attention because of increased complexity. Algorithms for blind SISO source and channel identification with applications in biomedical electronics 1400996 1S The purposes of the project is to utilise new algorithms and study their robustness, efficiency and limitations. The area selected to apply the new algorithms is infant fever monitoring and the extraction of the “core temperature” from measurements of the “skin temperature”. Levine,J.M. (with Constantinides,G.A.) Temperature and voltage characterisation of devices 4D4T4J The performance and lifetime of an integrated circuit is dependent upon operating and environmental conditions, which include temperature and supply voltage. To produce reliable devices it is important to characterise behaviour under all scenarios that are likely to be encountered in the field. The information can be used to develop techniques for making circuits more efficient, better performing and more reliable. This project will design an experimental rig for precisely and safely controlling the voltage and temperature of a circuit-undertest. An API will enable the hardware to be easily controlled by a top-level experiment procedure . The rig will then be used to carry out an investigation into performance and reliability in FPGA devices. The project will feature both hardware and software development and encompasses aspects from mechanical components all the way up to a potential web interface . Thus it can be adapted to fit a student's skills, though for high marks I would like to see a fully-integrated, vertical solution that could be released under an open-source license for use by the research community. To demonstrate its usefulness, the system could be used to carry out (and possibly publish the results of) accelerated life testing or statistical characterisation of devices. 1400849 Liu,Y. (with Constandinou,T.) 2-wire Power/Data Interface for Implantable Medical Devices 4T Implantable medical devices typically employ transcutaneous (i.e. through the skin) telemetries to transmit power and data (inductively), thus avoiding the risk of infection due to breaching the skin barrier. The implanted device(s) however use wired connections between multi-module implants. Examples include: deep brain stimulators (DBS) for Parkinson's/dystonia/essential tremor, cochlear implants for hearing, etc. A key challenge in ALL such systems is the mechanical reliability of interconnects in general fewer wires are preferable. This project aims to develop a new 2-wire interface for communicating between a neural (brain) implant (inside the skull) and a processing unit (situated in the chest cavity). The interface should implement full-duplex (simultaneous bidirectional) communication of up to 1Mbps, with error detection/correction, and recover a reference clock, power supply, and bias references within the neural implant module. An additional requirement is that several modules can share this communication interface, i.e. can be connected and are addressible in parallel. Key challenges are: (1) there must be no static electric field (i.e. no DC), (2) electronics must occupy a minimal volume (minimal components), (3) minimal power dissipation. This project will firstly develop new concepts for this 2-wire protocol and implement these in a prototype (hardware) demonstrator. It is expected that any novel contributions will be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals/conferences. Ideal student background: good practical ability required - familiarity and experience with microcontrollers, embedded programming, analogue and digital electronics, PCB design, communication methods and protocols, power management/regulation. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 16 of 39 PID Supervisor 1400850 Liu,Y. (with Constandinou,T.) Calibration-free Real-time Neural Spike Streaming Room Description Brain Machine Interfaces (BMIs) are a direct communication pathway between the brain and an external device. BMIs are often directed at assisting, augmenting, or repairing human cognitive or sensory-motor functions. 4T Implanted BMIs use tiny electrodes inserted into the tissue to monitor the spiking activity of individual neurons (action potentials) or local populations of neurons (local field potentials). However, the observed recordings vary from electrode to electrode (both in signal amplitude and background noise level), and may change over time. In order to effectively utilise these recordings, amplifier gains and analogue to digital converter resolutions are currently individually tuned (manually) such as to maximise the useful dynamic range. Future BMIs will have 1000s of channels to decode our thoughts and provide useful information for controlling external devices, for example, prosthetic limbs, computers, etc. It is however unpractical to individually manually calibrate each channel to the observed signal dynamics, particularly as these change over time. Future BMIs will therefore have to adapt and self calibrate to the signal dynamics. This project will develop a computationally-efficient (i.e. minimal computation and memory) adaptive algorithm to effectively detect these spike signals without needing any calibration. The algorithm will then be implemented in an ultra low power embedded platform to demonstrate real-time adaptive spike streaming. This will then be used by a research team based at Imperial that is implementing a multi-channel BMI implant chip. It is expected that any novel contributions will additionally be published in relevant peer-reviewed journals/conferences. Ideal student background: strong in Matlab and C, good experience required with microcontrollers and embedded programming. 1400969 Papavassiliou,C. Student self proposed Design and build 1400971 Papavassiliou,C. Circuits utilising Memristor devices 1400972 Papavassiliou,C. Interfaces for multilevel Resistive RAM 1400973 Papavassiliou,C. Arrays of oscillators 915 A design and build project, preferably one which includes a radio. 3E3I 915 3E3I 915 3E3I 915 3E3I The memristor is a resistor whose value of resistance is determined by the recent history of signals applied to it. Memristors can be used to make variable gain amplifiers, power meters, pulsed transmitters (neuron emulators) and more. Resistive Random Access memories have been proposed as a future direction of memory technology. They are easy to manufacture, have a very small unit cell and can support several bits per cell. The main challenge is to devise a simple enough and accurate enough interface which will make this technology practical. Groups of coupled oscillators develop collective modes, which are spectrally purer than each individual oscillator. In fact, the output properties of a group of coupled oscillator depend more on the interconnection details (strength of interactions and delays) than on the properties of the individual oscillators. To see this consider the ring oscillator widely used in integrated electronics, which IS a rather good oscillator, despite consisting of non-oscillating inverters! In this project we will investigate, through SPICE or MATLAB simulations, the noise properties of lattices (two-dimensional arrays) of oscillators. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 17 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400988 Papavassiliou,C. 915 A modulated nonlinear capacitor can act as an amplifier. Parametric amplifiers do not involve transistors, are power efficient are narrowband and operate at extremely high frequencies. Monolithic parametric amplifiers 1401028 Papavassiliou,C. Steering the beam of an antenna array 1401108 1401110 1A1S 10 February 2015 Antenna element coupling affects the radiation pattern of antenna arrays. In turn, element coupling can be modulated by change of impedance matching between the antenna and the transmitter/receiver. In this project we will investigate how deliberate modulation of antenna impedance matching can be used, perhaps, to enhance antenna array steering accuracy and angular resolution. Propose a gadget you would like to design and make. Possible application areas are: audio, remote control and remote sensing. You will design the gadget, make a prototype and test it. The project does not have to be novel but should address an engineering challenge in low noise circuits, radio frequency electronics or instrumentation engineering. Projects may use microcontrollers. 915 An experimental project with two aims: 1. optimise some existing memristor array measurement hardware. 2. Use this hardware to extract statistics on arrays of memristors made with different materials, and consequently decide on which one are useful for electronic applications. 915 Signals from array receivers can be processed to extract super-resolved directional information. In this project receiver software will be written to operate an array of USRP2 soft radio receivers we have in the laboratory. 1A 1A1C1S 915 The performance limits of chopper amplifiers utilising irregular chopping signals will be explored in MATLAB or CADENCE. 1A1S Papavassiliou,C. Slow mode RF distributed filters Coupled oscillator arrays develop collective modes, spectrally purer than the elements they are made up of. In this project you will design a low noise voltage controlled oscillator by exploiting the spectral refinement afforded by a suitable choice of coupling between the oscillators. 915 1A Papavassiliou,C. Performance limits of Chopper amplifiers 1401117 915 Papavassiliou,C. High performance antenna array receiver 1401116 1A1C Papavassiliou,C. Memristor array characterisation 1401115 915 Papavassiliou,C. Student self-proposed design and construct 1401114 4D4T Papavassiliou,C. Beam Steering in mismatched Antenna arrays In this project we will study monolithic implementations of parametric amplifiers. 915 Papavassiliou,C. Weakly coupled oscillator arrays 1401109 3E3I 915 1A In this project we will investigate filters built on layered and patterned substrates. Such materials may support spectral abnormally slow surface wave modes. These modes have frequency ranges within which they are dipersionless (i.e. phase velocity constant with frequency) and lossless, permitting the design of miniaturised distributed filters. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 18 of 39 PID Supervisor Room 1401182 Papavassiliou,C. 915 4D4T beam steering in antenna arrays 1401178 Description Papavassiliou,C. (with Fobelets,K.) 915 3E4D4T Feasibility of using thermoelectric powered cycle lights Thermoelectricity is the method of converting heat gradients into electrical power. Small thermoelectric generators (TEGs) with a thickness of 0.5 cm and area between 0.25 and 25 cm^2 are commercially available and are used e.g. to charge the battery of pacemakers. When cycling, the body is losing heat while the forced convection is causing cooling, this offers the possibility of heat gradients that can be exploited by thermoelectrics. In this project the student will analyse whether it is possible to scavenge heat from the cyclist to directly or indirectly power LEDs for cycle lights. A demonstrator needs to be built based on the proposed design. A brief overview of the tasks: - study the principles of thermoelectric power generation and check commercially available components - literature search into the use of thermoelectric power generation from body heat - investigate/measure heat gradients that can be generated whilst cycling - investigate the power management system needed to exploit this non-constant heat gradient - investigate LED control systems that can be used with the available power - design a TEG - power management system - LED system for a cyclist - build and test This project will be supervised by Dr. K. Fobelets (thermoelectrics, cyclist) and Dr. C. Papavasilliou (circuits, cyclist). The project is 100% experimental. A keen interest in cycling is advisable. 1400975 Rodriguez-Villegas,E. (with ) Rodriguez-Villegas,E. (with ) Flexible coil antenna structures 1401016 Spence,R. (with Witkowski,C.M.) Product Space Explorer for Smart Purchasing 1401017 Spence,R. (with Witkowski,C.M.) Computed Aided Design Space Exploration 10 February 2015 This project looks at the implementation of an RFID system in microwave and/or UHF frequency range for high bit rate data transmission in wearable devices. Applications such as monitoring heart rate and body temperature will be investigated. The student will undertake a comprehensive review of current state of the art for wearable devices along with the state of the art UHF/Microwave RFID systems. Implementation of a programmable UHF/MW RFID system for ultra-low power high bit rate data transmission will be investigated using off the shelf components. MATLAB, C 914 the student will look at the design, simulation, and experimental measurements on a range of flexible antenna and inductors coils. This will be complemented by simulation and measurements on the loading effects of human body on such structures. The aim is to construct an experimentally validated simulation model for such antenna and inductor structure. MATLAB, ANSYS HFSS, AWR Microwave Office 913A The invention, design, implementation and evaluation of an interface (e.g., web page) to permit the exploration of many products (e.g., 1000 cameras) and the eventual selection of one to purchase. 4T UHF and microwave RFID systems for wearable devices 1400978 914 4T 4D4T4J 913A 4D4T4J The development of an interface to support the design of an artifact (e.g., electronic circuit) or scheme (e.g., a plan to reduce crime in a selected geographical area) in which the numbers of designable parameters and performances of interest are large (at least 10). There will be tolerances on parameters; there may be flexibility in performance requirements; and there will be huge benefits to be gained by allowing a designer to explore (e.g., the effect of parameter variation) interactively in order to gain some insight into, for example, inherent trade-offs in performances. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 19 of 39 PID Supervisor 1400958 Stott,E. (with Constantinides,G.A.) Power measurement breakdown in digital logic Room 4D4T4J Description The power consumed by a digital circuit is dependent upon a number of parameters, including supply voltage, switching activity and leakage current. It is easy to measure the overall power but how can we get a breakdown of the proportion of power used by different parts of the circuit? Knowing this would allow us to optimise operation of complex systems-on-chips to improve efficiency. This project will find out if it is possible to estimate power consumption in digital circuits by probing a small proportion of the internal and external signals and analysing the statistical properties of the trace that is returned. The main skills required are digital circuit design with hardware description languages and data analysis. Generating some indicative results should be straightforward, but to achieve high marks the candidate could consider how the probe locations could be selected while the circuit is being designed and produce tools that would automate the process. 1400952 Thomas,D.B. (with Drane,T.) Constrained Input Domain Synthesis 903 1A1C1S This is an industrially led research project that addresses the observation that within deep arithmetic pipelines there may be redundant hardware; for example there may be branches which are actually never entered, variables which are constant, or stuck at bit, all regardless of which inputs enter the pipeline. It is also common that the set of possible inputs to the pipeline is restricted i.e. has a constrained input domain. Synthesis tools don’t optimise these redundancies, but exploiting these opportunities can provide significant hardware quality improvements. The idea is that one could hook up a verification and synthesis tools to discover these situations and thus automatically 'scrub' code of dead branches and logic. This project would suit students with either experience or an interest in RTL (VHDL/Verilog), synthesis and/or verification. This project will involve working with an industrial researcher (as well as the supervisor). 1400953 Thomas,D.B. (with Drane,T.) Power Estimation of RTL 903 1A1C1S Power measurement of RTL typically requires long simulations, using tools with very expensive licenses usage, so it would be preferable if analytic probabilities could be calculated for switching information. Techniques do exist which attempt to perform this task but require further research in order to allow tools which deliver usable results on industrial strength benchmarks in a reasonable time. This project will look into the use of BDDs and interval arithmetic, in order to try to develop such tools. This project would suit students interested in the fundamentals of digital logic synthesis, with good mathematical skills, decent programming skills (in any language, matlab is fine), and some knowledge of RTL simulation. This project will involve working with an industrial researcher (as well as the supervisor). 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 20 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401016 Witkowski,C.M. (with Spence,R.) 1007D The invention, design, implementation and evaluation of an interface (e.g., web page) to permit the exploration of many products (e.g., 1000 cameras) and the eventual selection of one to purchase. Product Space Explorer for Smart Purchasing 1401017 Witkowski,C.M. (with Spence,R.) Computed Aided Design Space Exploration 1401190 Brookes,D.M. Softened binary masks for speech quality improvement 1401191 Brookes,D.M. Frequency-dependent speech activity detection 1401183 Clerckx,B. Communication with imperfect feedback 4D4T4J 1007D 4D4T4J 814 3E4D4T3I4J 814 3E4D4T3I4J 816 3E3I The development of an interface to support the design of an artifact (e.g., electronic circuit) or scheme (e.g., a plan to reduce crime in a selected geographical area) in which the numbers of designable parameters and performances of interest are large (at least 10). There will be tolerances on parameters; there may be flexibility in performance requirements; and there will be huge benefits to be gained by allowing a designer to explore (e.g., the effect of parameter variation) interactively in order to gain some insight into, for example, inherent trade-offs in performances. Speech enhancement algorithms based on binary masks work by first converting a noisy speech signal into the time-frequency domain which determines the energy of the signal as a function of both time and frequency. Speech enhancement is then performed in this domain by multiplying the value in each time-frequency cell by a mask that equals either 0 or 1 according to whether the cell is classified as containing primarily speech or primarily noise. Finally the signal is converted back into the time domain for output playback. Although these binary mask enhancers can greatly improve the intelligibility of poor quality speech, their output signals sound very unpleasant (albeit intelligible). By softening the abrupt edges of the mask in both time and frequency, this project aims to improve the perceived quality of binary-masked signals while retaining their high intelligibility. The project will be done in MATLAB. In a speech recording, there are often extended periods of silence and so the purpose of a "speech activity detector" is to distinguish between time intervals that contain speech and those that do not. This project seeks to extend the idea of a speech activity detector and devise an algorithm that uses multiple frequency bands and is able to identify intervals of speech activity within each band independently. Ideally, the speech activity detector should function correctly even when the speech is corrupted with moderate levels of additive acoustic noise. The project will use MATLAB. Description: Wireless communication systems rely more and more on the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver (MIMO). MIMO is nowadays the core technology of 4G networks. Some of the MIMO transmission strategies rely on accurate channel state information (CSI) feedback. In this context, a fundamental issue in wireless communications is to provide accurate CSI to the transmitter while incurring a small feedback overhead. The aim of the project is to understand the fundamentals of feedback design in communication systems and compare the performance of various strategies in different scenarios. Skills required: strong interests in comms/signal processing required, algorithm development, analysis, simulation, matlab or C/C++ programming 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 21 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401184 Clerckx,B. 816 Description: Wireless communication systems rely more and more on the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and the receiver (MIMO). MIMO is nowadays the core technology of 4G networks. Space-Time coding refers to the information encoding strategy used in MIMO systems to boost the performance. Contrary to classical transmission where transmission is performed in the time domain only, information is jointly encoded in space and time with space-time coding to provide further reliability to the system and to boost the spectral efficiency of the transmission. The aim of the project is to understand the fundamentals of space-time code design and compare the performance of various space-time coding strategies in different scenarios. 3E3I Space-Time Coding Skills required: algorithm development, analysis, simulation, matlab or C/C++ programming 1400932 Clerckx,B. (with Mitcheson,P.D.) 816 3E3I Waveform Design for Wireless Power Transfer Wireless sensor network (WSN) has attracted a lot of attention in various machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as smart home networking, smart metering, and healthcare due to its low deployment costs coupled with a high potential to sense and collect object-oriented data through a large number of cheap wireless sensor nodes. One of the main challenges in WSN is that nodes are resource-constrained, mainly due to battery limitation. To enable autonomous wireless devices, the project will investigate the feasibility of wireless power transfer. While receiver design for wireless power transfer has been relatively well researched, the design of suitable waveforms is much less known. In the project, the student will investigate how the waveform design influences the performance of wireless power transfer and identify suitable waveforms. The student will get the opportunity to progressively get familiar with the latest research in wireless communications, RF design and power transfer, discuss and imagine the basic concepts of next generation wireless power networks. Skills required: strong interests in communication/signal processing and RF design, algorithm development, analysis, simulations, RF measurement, matlab and PSpice programming The following references are helpful: • A. S. Boaventura and N. B. Carvalho, “Maximizing DC Power in Energy Harvesting Circuits Using Multisine Excitation,” 2011 IEEE MTT-S International Microwave Symposium Digest (MTT). • M. Pinuela, P. Mitcheson and S. Lucyszyn, “Ambient RF energy harvesting in urban and semi-urban environments” IEEE Trans. on microwave theory and techniques, vol 61, no 7, july 2013. • J. Park and B. Clerckx, “Joint Wireless Information and Energy Transfer in a Two-User MIMO Interference Channel,” IEEE Trans. Wireless Commun., vol. 12, no. 8, pp. 4210–4221, Aug. 2013. 1401079 Constantinides,A.G. (with Georgiou,P.) Algorithms for blind SISO source and channel identification with applications in biomedical electronics 10 February 2015 618 1S The area of blind channel equalisation has received considerable attention over the years. The major direction has been based on the use of either higher order statistical signal properties and/or multiple sensors which serve to diversify signals. The rather demanding area of a Single-Input-Single-Output (SISO) system has received little attention because of increased complexity. The purposes of the project is to utilise new algorithms and study their robustness, efficiency and limitations. The area selected to apply the new algorithms is infant fever monitoring and the extraction of the “core temperature” from measurements of the “skin temperature”. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 22 of 39 PID Supervisor Room 1401105 Constantinides,A.G. (with Ling,C.) 618 1A1C1S Hidden Markov Models for blind system identification of the financial market and forecasting 1401129 Constantinides,A.G. (with Mandic,D.P.) Algorithmic Trading Using Phase Synchronization Description 618 1A1C1S Phase synchrony is a measure widely emloyed in bioengineering, as it is independent of the amplitude of the recorded data and thus robust to sensor imperfection, but is rarely used in finance. Recently, an initial algorithmic trading approach was proposed in [1] but it only focused on univariate data channels. With the emergence of multivariate techniques for multiscale processing, there is an opportunity to extend the principles of scale-aware algorithmic trading to multivariate financial data, in order to benefit for the mutual information and coupling present in such data. The project will be based on the recently introduced multivariate synchrosqueezing transform (MSST) technique and will generalise the results in [1] to more realistic scenarios. [1] A. Ahrabian, C. Cheong Took,and D. P. Mandic, "Algorithmic Trading Using Phase Synchronization", IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, VOL. 6, NO. 4, AUGUST 2012 [2] A. Ahrabian, D. Looney, L. Stankovic, and D. P. Mandic, ``Synchrosqueezing-based time-frequency analysis of multivariate data'', Signal Processing, accepted, vol. 106, pp. 331--341, 2015. [3] IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, special issue on Time-Frequency Estimation, November 2013. 1400894 Dai,W. Learning from Data 1400896 Dai,W. Sparse Channel Estimation 811 4D4T4J 811 4D4T4J This will be a self-designed project by the student in the sense that the student will need to select a dataset that she/he is most interested in and identify technical tools to learn useful information from the data. The data could be the publicly available data from data.gov.uk or financial data or any other things that are legal. The student will be required to study the literature, identify the technical tools that can be used to analyse the data, and justify them. The programming platform (Matlab or C etc.) for numerical tests is also the student's choice. The course "Topics in Large Dimensional Signal Processing" is not required but highly recommended. Channel estimation is one of the keys for reliable communications. There have been many techniques proposed for sparse channel estimation in the literature. This project is designed to get familiar with the benchmark methods, compare and test them, and explore new techniques for modern communication systems, e.g. massive MIMO systems. Matlab programming will be required. References to start: * Waheed U. Bajwa, Jarvis Haupt, Akbar M. Sayeed, and Robert Nowak, "Compressed Channel Sensing: A New Approach to Estimating Sparse Multipath Channels". * Christian R. Berger, Shengli Zhou, James C. Preisig, and Peter Willett, "Sparse Channel Estimation for Multicarrier Underwater Acoustic Communication: From Subspace Methods to Compressed Sensing". 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 23 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400842 Dragotti,P.L. 802 Image Based Rendering (IBR) is a promising technique to render novel views from a set of available multi-view images. Instead of rendering views of 3-D scenes by projecting objects and their textures, new views are rendered by interpolating available nearby images. The advantage of such a method is that it produces convincing photorealistic results since the interpolated viewpoints are obtained through combinations of real images. The main drawback is the fact that a huge amount of data needs to be captured. Clearly, knowledge of the scene geometry reduces the number of images required. The estimation of depth and geometry has been normally achieved using passive stereo with multiple cameras. Unfortunately, 3-D reconstruction techniques from passive cameras, are still not reliable and do not work well in many cases. This fact has profoundly limited the use of IBR ideas. Recent advances in sensing technologies may soon allow large-scale deployment of 3-D cameras using active depth sensing systems. These cameras are able to estimate depth and geometry with good accuracy and reliability, and for this reason can be very useful in IBR. Image Based Rendering with depth sensors 4D4T4J In future mobile phones will be equipped with both a camera and an active depth sensing device. This will allow IBR to be performed easily and effectively on a mobile device. The aim of the project is to build a simple 3-D active sensor device which would mimic devices that will be put on mobile phones and then try to combine the data provided by the active device with the images obtained in order to achieve good IBR results. 1401204 Goverdovsky,V. (with Mandic,D.P.) Stress detection from wearable physiological sensors: Signal processing for big data in healthcare 3E The candidate will record their own physiological variables, such as heart rate, pulse, respiration, electroencephalogram over very long time periods, such as hours or overnight. This will be achieved in a completely unobtrusive manner, using our own ultra-wearable biosignal recording unit. Such data will then be used to 'make sense' from such big data sources using signal processing algorithms. Particular signatures of interest in such data will be related to stress, both cognitive (e.g. solving a mathematical task) and physical (e.g. exercising in the gym). The project will involve numerous recording sessions in the natural environment (at home, classroom) and will require knowledge of data conditioning, estimation, and separation. Literature: [1] A. Williamon, L. Aufegger, D. Wasley, D. Looney, and D. P. Mandic, "Complexity of physiological responses decreases in high stress musical performance", Royal Society Interface, vol. 10, no. 89, pp. 1--6, 2013. [2] The Handbook of Stress and the Brain, Elsevier, 2005. [3] M. Ahmed and D. Mandic, "Multivariate multiscale entropy: A tool for complexity analysis of multicahnnel data", Physical Review E, vol. 84, no. 6, 2011. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 24 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400918 Ling,C. 815 Compressed sensing is a revolutionized technique for simultaneous sampling and compression of signals. It goes beyond the classical Nyquist sampling and predicts that a sparse vector in high dimensions can be recovered from what was previously believed to be incomplete information. Sensing matrices play a crucial role in compressed sensing. Although random matrices (i.i.d. Gaussian or Bernoulli) have been proved to good for compressed sensing, they are heavy in computation and storage; worse, they offer no guarantees in practice. In this project, you will study deterministic sensing matrices by using coding theory, sequence design, or de-randomizing structured random matrices, and explore the applications to MRI, Terahertz imaging etc. Programming skills are required for successful completion of this project. Semi-Deterministic compressed sensing 1401202 Ling,C. Coding for cloud storage 1401105 Ling,C. (with Constantinides,A.G.) Hidden Markov Models for blind system identification of the financial market and forecasting 1400991 3E3I 815 3E3I 815 1A1C1S Looney,D. (with Mandic,D.P.) Complexity science meets visual perception: Selective attention in the perceptions of images and videos You will apply coding theory to efficiently and reliably store data in the clouds. Knowledge of coding theory is essential. MATLAB programming is required. 4D4T4J The trajectories of eye gaze can be related to different cognitive tasks, as illustrated in the seminal "Yarbus experiment" in 1960s. For instance, causal scanning of an image produces relatively random eye-tracks, whereas upon executing a cognitive instructions (look for ages of people, how affluent the family is) the eye gaze is modulated according to the instruction. The student will use our gaze tracker to perform dynamical complexity analysis of eye-gaze, according to different cognitive instructions. This will be performed for various images (from natural to abstract) and over a range of subjects and measured variables (x,y eye gaze, pupil diameter, eye dwelling). In this way, the 'complexity loss theory', which states that the complexity of physiological responses in living organisms reduces under constraints (ageing, illness) will be rigorously tested. Applications in 'guilty knowledge' scenarios in interview situations, together with those in fatigue monitoring, and the quality of web-design will be investigated. References: [1] A. Yarbus "Congitive Visual Attention", 1971 [2] M. U. Ahmed and D. P. Mandic, "Multivariate multiscale entropy: A tool for complexity analysis of multichannel data'', Physical Review E, vol. 84, no. 6, pp. 061918-1 -- 061918-10, 2011. [3] D. Looney, M. U. Ahmed and D. P. Mandic, "Human Centred Multivariate Complexity Analysis," Natural Intelligence Magazine, vol 1, no. 3, pp. 40-42, 2012. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 25 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400990 Mandic,D.P. 813 Standard complex-valued adaptive filters combine the amplitude and phase information to produce their estimates. However, in many applications the amplitude information is either not important or can be misleading (e.g. due to sensor different signal levels in Electroencephalography), and it is the phase information that needs to be estimated accurately. This project will investigate a least-mean-phase approach to adaptive filtering, which uses phase to perform adaptive estimation of signal and system parameters. This is natural in both human-centred studies (e.g. human hearing system is tuned for phase information) and also in e.g. communication systems. The project will introduce widely linear adaptive filters in the phase domain, in order to make such estimation optimal for both complex circular and complex noncircular data. The project will involve a case study on frequency and phase estimation in smart grid, and a preliminary study of a direct phase estimation without the necessity for the Clarke transform. The phase-only vs. amplitude-only estimation will be investigated via the least-mean-magnitude-phase (LMMP) approach. Phase-only adaptive filtering in smart grid applications 4D4T4J Familiarity with adaptive filtering is a prerequisite. References: [1] A. Tarighat and A. H. Sayed, "Least mean-phase adaptive filters with application to communications systems", IEEE Signal Processing Letters, vool. 11, no. 2, pp. 220-223, 2004. [2] D. P. Mandic and V. S. L. Goh, "Complex valued nonlinear adaptive filters: Noncircularity, widely linear, and neural models", Wiley 2009. [3] Y. Xia, S. C. Douglas and D. P. Mandic, "Adaptive frequency estimation in smart grid applications: Exploring noncircularity and widely linear estimators'', IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, vol. 29, no. 5, pp. 44-54, 2012. [4] S. C. Douglas and D. P. Mandic, "The Least Mean Magnitude Phase Adaptive Filter", Proc. ICASSP, 2011. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 26 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400993 Mandic,D.P. 813 This project will investigate adaptive prediction schemes suitable for the operation on vector sensors, such as the threedimensional wind signal. The forecasting will be conducted in the quaternion domain, benefiting from the desirable properties of quaternion algebra (division algebra), and for a class of stochastic gradient adaptive prediction algorithms. Short term forecasting of threedimensional wind profile for renewable energy applications 4D4T Recent advances in the statistics of quaternion variable (pseudocovariance, involutions, noncircularity) will be used to design enhanced learning algorithms. In addition, the use of an additional atmospheric variable (air density, temperature) within the four-dimensional quaternionic model will be investigated. The algorithms will be tested on real world 3D wind recordings. The student is also expected to conduct their own recordings based on our own 3D anemometers. Simulations will include several case studies to investigate the usefulness of the approach in the control and vibration suppression of wind turbines. The student should be familiar with spectrum estimation and adaptive signal processing. Literature: [1] C. Cheong-Took and D. P. Mandic, 'The Quaternion LMS Algorithm for Adaptive Filtering of Hypercomplex Processes', IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 57, no. 4, pp. 1316–1327, 2009. [2] D. P. Mandic et al. 'Complex Valued Prediction of Wind Profile Using Augmented Complex Statistics', Renewable Energy, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 196–201, 2009. 1400995 Mandic,D.P. Harnessing the power of renewable energy sources: Complexity science answers 813 4D4T The dynamics and latent coupling between the atmospheric variables (wind, temperature, solar irradiation, air density, humidity) have a direct influence on the power output from the renewables (wind, solar). While the numerical weather forecasts are precise, they are obtained from satellite images and may not be accurate for every particular site. This project will look into joint dynamic complexity of atmospheric variables, in order to assess the relationship between the amount of 'structure' in data and the extent to which renewable energy can be generated from the wind and solar plants. [1] Costa M, Goldberger AL, Peng C-K. "Multiscale entropy analysis of complex physiologic time series". Physical Review Letters 2002;89:068102. [2] M. U. Ahmed and D. P. Mandic, "Multivariate multiscale entropy: A tool for complexity analysis of multichannel data'', Physical Review E, vol. 84, no. 6, pp. 061918-1--061918-10, 2011. [3] N. Rehman, D. Looney, T. M. Rutkowski, and D. P. Mandic, "Data-adaptive multivariate complexity analysis", Bulletin of the Polish Academy of Sciences, vol. 50, no. 3, pp. 433-466, 2012 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 27 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401125 Mandic,D.P. 813 This project will investigate adaptive prediction schemes suitable for the operation on vector sensors, such as the threedimensional wind signal. The forecasting will be conducted in the quaternion domain, benefiting from the desirable properties of quaternion algebra (division algebra), and for a class of stochastic gradient adaptive prediction algorithms. Quaternion-Valued Adaptive Wind Forecasting for Renewable Energy Applications 1S Recent advances in the statistics of quaternion variable (pseudocovariance, involutions, noncircularity) will be used to design enhanced learning algorithms. In addition, the use of an additional atmospheric variable (air density, temperature) within the four-dimensional quaternionic model will be investigated. The algorithms will be tested on real world 3D wind recordings. The student is also expected to conduct their own recordings based on our own 3D anemometers. Simulations will include several case studies to investigate the usefulness of the approach in the control and vibration suppression of wind turbines. The student should be familiar with spectrum estimation and adaptive signal processing. Literature: [1] C. Cheong-Took and D. P. Mandic, 'The Quaternion LMS Algorithm for Adaptive Filtering of Hypercomplex Processes', IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, vol. 57, no. 4, pp. 1316–1327, 2009. [2] D. P. Mandic et al. 'Complex Valued Prediction of Wind Profile Using Augmented Complex Statistics', Renewable Energy, vol. 34, no. 1, pp. 196–201, 2009. 1401128 Mandic,D.P. Collaborative distributed adaptive estimation 813 1S This project will investigate the benefits of collaborative distributed adaptive filtering strategies. The idea behind this approach is to split a task into a number of small scale sub-tasks, whose outputs will be combined adaptively in order to obtain a "greater" and more accurate estimate of the process considered. This is of crucial importance in a variety of application where measurements from multiple sensors are combined in real time. The basis of this work will be collaborative adaptive filtering paradigm and its extension to multidimensional cases. The diffusion LMS technique will be investigated and its applications on communications and biomedical datasets will be addressed. Familiarity with adaptive filtering is essential. Some background material can be found in F. Cattivelli and A. Sayed, "Distributed detection over adaptive networks using diffusion adaptation", IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing, 2011 D. Mandic and S. L. Goh, "Complex Valued Nonlinear Adaptive Filters", Wiley 2009. D. Mandic et al. "Signal Processing Techniques for Knowledge Extraction and Information Fusion", Springer 2008. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 28 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401129 Mandic,D.P. (with Constantinides,A.G.) 813 Phase synchrony is a measure widely emloyed in bioengineering, as it is independent of the amplitude of the recorded data and thus robust to sensor imperfection, but is rarely used in finance. Recently, an initial algorithmic trading approach was proposed in [1] but it only focused on univariate data channels. With the emergence of multivariate techniques for multiscale processing, there is an opportunity to extend the principles of scale-aware algorithmic trading to multivariate financial data, in order to benefit for the mutual information and coupling present in such data. The project will be based on the recently introduced multivariate synchrosqueezing transform (MSST) technique and will generalise the results in [1] to more realistic scenarios. Algorithmic Trading Using Phase Synchronization 1A1C1S [1] A. Ahrabian, C. Cheong Took,and D. P. Mandic, "Algorithmic Trading Using Phase Synchronization", IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing, VOL. 6, NO. 4, AUGUST 2012 [2] A. Ahrabian, D. Looney, L. Stankovic, and D. P. Mandic, ``Synchrosqueezing-based time-frequency analysis of multivariate data'', Signal Processing, accepted, vol. 106, pp. 331--341, 2015. [3] IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, special issue on Time-Frequency Estimation, November 2013. 1401204 Mandic,D.P. (with Goverdovsky,V.) Stress detection from wearable physiological sensors: Signal processing for big data in healthcare 813 3E The candidate will record their own physiological variables, such as heart rate, pulse, respiration, electroencephalogram over very long time periods, such as hours or overnight. This will be achieved in a completely unobtrusive manner, using our own ultra-wearable biosignal recording unit. Such data will then be used to 'make sense' from such big data sources using signal processing algorithms. Particular signatures of interest in such data will be related to stress, both cognitive (e.g. solving a mathematical task) and physical (e.g. exercising in the gym). The project will involve numerous recording sessions in the natural environment (at home, classroom) and will require knowledge of data conditioning, estimation, and separation. Literature: [1] A. Williamon, L. Aufegger, D. Wasley, D. Looney, and D. P. Mandic, "Complexity of physiological responses decreases in high stress musical performance", Royal Society Interface, vol. 10, no. 89, pp. 1--6, 2013. [2] The Handbook of Stress and the Brain, Elsevier, 2005. [3] M. Ahmed and D. Mandic, "Multivariate multiscale entropy: A tool for complexity analysis of multicahnnel data", Physical Review E, vol. 84, no. 6, 2011. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 29 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400991 Mandic,D.P. (with Looney,D.) 813 The trajectories of eye gaze can be related to different cognitive tasks, as illustrated in the seminal "Yarbus experiment" in 1960s. For instance, causal scanning of an image produces relatively random eye-tracks, whereas upon executing a cognitive instructions (look for ages of people, how affluent the family is) the eye gaze is modulated according to the instruction. Complexity science meets visual perception: Selective attention in the perceptions of images and videos 4D4T4J The student will use our gaze tracker to perform dynamical complexity analysis of eye-gaze, according to different cognitive instructions. This will be performed for various images (from natural to abstract) and over a range of subjects and measured variables (x,y eye gaze, pupil diameter, eye dwelling). In this way, the 'complexity loss theory', which states that the complexity of physiological responses in living organisms reduces under constraints (ageing, illness) will be rigorously tested. Applications in 'guilty knowledge' scenarios in interview situations, together with those in fatigue monitoring, and the quality of web-design will be investigated. References: [1] A. Yarbus "Congitive Visual Attention", 1971 [2] M. U. Ahmed and D. P. Mandic, "Multivariate multiscale entropy: A tool for complexity analysis of multichannel data'', Physical Review E, vol. 84, no. 6, pp. 061918-1 -- 061918-10, 2011. [3] D. Looney, M. U. Ahmed and D. P. Mandic, "Human Centred Multivariate Complexity Analysis," Natural Intelligence Magazine, vol 1, no. 3, pp. 40-42, 2012. 1400983 Manikas,A. Green MIMO Communications 1400986 1401139 10 February 2015 801 Keywords: MIMO Communication, Very High Secrecy. 4D4T4J Manikas,A. Massive MIMO versus Large Aperture Array MIMO systems Keywords: MIMO Communication System, Spectral Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Bio Safety, Electromagnetic Pollution. 1S Manikas,A. Highly Secret MIMO System 801 Knowing the geometrical characteristics of a MIMO communcaition system, there is an opportunity of integrating the spatial parameters in the coding to make the signals readable at a particular position only. Question: Could it be possible to include the position of the multiple antennas in the coding scheme? 801 1S Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 30 of 39 PID Supervisor 1400944 Moore,A. (with Naylor,P.A.) Room 1400944 Naylor,P.A. (with Moore,A.) Image source localisation using intensity vectors 1400873 Required Course: DSP 3.07 Recommended course: Speech Processing 4T Image source localisation using intensity vectors Barria,J.A. Distributed coverage and field estimation using mobileassisted WSN Description When sound travels from a speaker to a microphone it follows many reflected paths as well as the direct path. Determining the directions of these reflections is very useful for estimating the room geometry and for dereverberation. Using a spherical microphone array, instantaneous intensity vectors can be calculated which give the direction of energy flow. This is the vector sum of energy flowing from each reflection. The aim of the project is to investigate different methods of decomposing measured intensity vectors to determine the directions of arrival of the constituent reflections. In the first instance Principal Components Analysis could prove useful but there is scope to apply a variety of techniques. 803 4T Required Course: DSP 3.07 Recommended course: Speech Processing When sound travels from a speaker to a microphone it follows many reflected paths as well as the direct path. Determining the directions of these reflections is very useful for estimating the room geometry and for dereverberation. Using a spherical microphone array, instantaneous intensity vectors can be calculated which give the direction of energy flow. This is the vector sum of energy flowing from each reflection. The aim of the project is to investigate different methods of decomposing measured intensity vectors to determine the directions of arrival of the constituent reflections. In the first instance Principal Components Analysis could prove useful but there is scope to apply a variety of techniques. 1012 4D4T4J Pervasive wireless sensor networks offer many mission-oriented opportunities. In this project we will evaluate the potential benefits of combining fixed and mobile sensor nodes as part of a mission-oriented, participatory sensor network deployed on an urban environment that has the objective of detecting the extent of the emission of a substance of interest, for example, pollutants. This project will investigate sweep coverage strategies for different network design features like e.g. number and position of fixed sensors, and number and velocity of mobile sensors. In a sweep coverage problem, for a given set of point of interest (POI), the available sensors will need to monitor these POIs under certain operational constraints. We will evaluate the system by assuming simple mobility models for sensors with and without enhanced local intelligence, and more realistic models that seek to reduce operating costs. 1400877 Barria,J.A. Smart grid resilient communication infrastructure and protocols 10 February 2015 1012 4D4T4J Review of industrial protocols for streaming data and communication protocols. Review and analyse protocols like e.g. IEC 61850 communication protocol and alternative/complementary ones. Design and implement a client server communication link to investigate the performance of these protocols for high reliable service requirements. Implement distance testing capabilities. Explicit agreement from supervisor required Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 31 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401072 Barria,J.A. 1012 Pervasive wireless sensor networks offer many mission-oriented opportunities. In this project we will evaluate the potential benefits of combining fixed and mobile sensor nodes as part of a mission-oriented, participatory sensor network deployed on an urban environment that has the objective of detecting the extent of the emission of a substance of interest, for example, pollutants. This project will investigate sweep coverage strategies for different network design features like e.g. number and position of fixed sensors, and number and velocity of mobile sensors. In a sweep coverage problem, for a given set of point of interest (POI), the available sensors will need to monitor these POIs under certain operational constraints. We will evaluate the system by assuming simple mobility models for sensors with and without enhanced local intelligence, and more realistic models that seek to reduce operating costs. 1012 Inference of network internal characteristics has become an increasing important issue for communication network operation. This project will investigate probe-based technology to establish a mechanism to infer and estimate internal link level delay distribution from end-to-end path measurements. We will investigate discrete as well as continuous approximations. The algorithms will be tested via simulation in terms of accuracy of estimation and computational complexity. 1012 Pervasive wireless sensor networks offer many mission-oriented opportunities. In this project we will evaluate the potential benefits of combining fixed and mobile sensor nodes as part of a mission-oriented, participatory sensor network deployed on an urban environment that has the objective of detecting the extent of the emission of a substance of interest, for example, pollutants. This project will investigate sweep coverage strategies for different network design features like e.g. number and position of fixed sensors, and number and velocity of mobile sensors. In a sweep coverage problem, for a given set of point of interest (POI), the available sensors will need to monitor these POIs under certain operational constraints. We will evaluate the system by assuming simple mobility models for sensors with and without enhanced local intelligence, and more realistic models that seek to reduce operating costs. Distributed coverage and field estimation using mobileassisted WSN 1401075 Barria,J.A. Probe-based inference of network delay distributions 1401185 Barria,J.A. Distributed coverage and field estimation using mobileassisted WSN 1401188 1S Barria,J.A. Location-based routing Algorithm in Mobile Ad Hoc Networks 1S 3E4D4T3I4J 1012 3E4D4T3I4J In a MANET environment the dynamic topology is a key feature and may change rapidly and unpredictably due to relative node movements which would affect the transfer of information, degrading the performance of e.g. routing protocols. We will study the performance of energy-aware position based routing protocols, its nodes’ location information and mobility. We will assess the algorithmic improvement when incorporating multiple metrics (QoS parameters) will be evaluated in a sample network and compared with previously proposed algorithms. Cat.: Mathematical/Analytical, Software. 1401069 Goodman,D.F.M. Analysis of large electrophysiological data sets 1018 1A1C1S Over the next few years, new hardware will become available that will provide neuroscientists with several orders of magnitude more data than were previously available. This will revolutionise neuroscience, but current analysis techniques will not scale to this new data. In this project, you will contribute to KlustaSuite (http://klusta-team.github.io/), an open-source effort to “spike sort” data from dense neural probes: that is, to determine the timing and identity of neural impulses (spikes) from data recorded from a large array of electrodes implanted in the brain. This could involve the design and implementation of algorithms for filtering and high-dimensional clustering, or the application of GPU or FPGA computing, for example. Required knowledge: good programming and mathematical skills Useful knowledge: signal processing, clustering (e.g. the expectation-maximisation algorithm), GPU or FPGA computing, Python, C++, some familiarity with extracellular recordings 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 32 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401007 Gunduz,D. 1016 Sensor networks are formed by small battery-powered devices that monitor the environment (e.g., weather monitoring, structures monitoring and health monitoring) and transmit the important data wirelessly to the network. For many sensor network applications it is either costly or impossible to replace drained batteries, such as structural sensors embedded in bridges, or sensors distributed over a rainforest. Energy harvesting technology resolves this limitation by harvesting the ambient energy (e.g., solar, wind or electromagnetic energy), promising seemingly perpetual operation. However, classical communication protocols, which are designed to improve the network lifetime based on limited power or energy resources, are not compatible with energy harvesting sensor networks, whose energy resources are sporadic and random. Energy harvesting communication system optimisation 4D4T4J In this project we want to investigate the following problem: there is an energy harvesting transmitter, which wants to transmit data to its destination. The transmitter can transmit through several orthogonal channels, but does not know the states of the channels (e.g., if the channels are good or bad for transmission). The transmitter can spend energy to probe some channels and estimate their states, but this will leave less energy for data transmission. Hence, the transmitter faces a trade-off between exploration (i.e., probing new channels and spending energy) and exploitation (i.e., transmitting on the best channel so far and use all the remaining energy for transmission). This trade-off has to be balanced with the random arrival of the energy as well. References: 1) P. Chaporkar and A. Proutiere. Optimal joint probing and transmission strategy for maximizing throughput in wireless systems. IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications, 26(18):1546–1556, Oct 2008. 2) P Blasco, D Gunduz, M Dohler. A Learning Theoretic Approach to Energy Harvesting Communication System Optimization. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications 12 (4), 1872-1882. The perfect candidate must have background on statistics and stochastic processes as well as wireless communications. The project will involve reading and understanding some technical papers, building up a mathematical model for the problem at hand, and Phyton or Matlab coding of the problem. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 33 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401134 Gunduz,D. 1016 The past decade has witnessed a rapid growth in the mobile network data traffic, driven by the tremendous increase in the variety of mobile devices and data-rich applications, such as live video streaming and online gaming. Optimal Content Placement and Cache Capacity Allocation 1C1S It has been observed that a significant portion of the mobile data traffic is caused by a relatively small number of highly popular content, such as viral video files, news videos, etc., downloaded by millions of users. In today's systems, each time such a request is received, the network fetches the content from the central server, and delivers it to the user through the access point (i.e., base station, WiFi router) it is connected from. A smarter solution is to “prefetch” and “cache” some of the most popular files at the sBSs or WiFi APs, and serve the users directly from these nodes on the network edge. This will reduce not only the traffic in the core network, but also the latency for users. This project will explore the optimum way of assigning files to the caches, in order to minimize the expected downloading time. To this end we will explore simple yet informative models of such systems, formulate the above as an optimisation problem (e.g. a linear programme) and propose efficient algorithms to solve them. Reference: N. Golrezaei, K. Shanmugam, A. G. Dimakis, A. F. Molisch, and G. Caire, “Femtocaching: Wireless video content delivery through distributed caching helpers,” in INFOCOM, 2012 Proceedings IEEE. IEEE, 2012, pp. 1107–1115 (available at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.4179v4.pdf 1400886 Kim,T-K. Object recognition in videos 1401158 Kim,T-K. Hand tracking/gesture recognition 1017 4D4T4J 1017 1A1C1S Object categorisation is one of the most important studies in computer vision. While considerable advances have been made in single-shot based object recognition (using a single ’query’ image), successful recognition in natural scenes still remains a challenging problem. Rather than a single query image that captures only a limited amount of information about a target object, a video (of moving objects and/or a camera) yields more evidence that can be accumulated for better recognition. With increasing use of mobile devices that have an embedded camera, there is a great motivation to develop visual recognition methods that take a video as input. In this project, we explore an extension of image based object cateogorisation techniques, into those for videos. Relevant works include Kim et al’s BMVC 2010 paper and TPAMI 2007 paper, available from Dr. T-K Kim’s website. The student is expected to have good program skills in C/C++, and backgrounds to study and implement relevant cutting-edge technologies, and to explore novel contributions. Recently, technology advances have made wearable, long operating time, egocentric camera devices such as Google Glass and Looxcie. The wearable egocentric cameras have much potential for various novel applications when they are combined with computer vision technologies. The main characteristic of the egocentric camera is that the camera sees what a person sees at the same time. It will be very useful if the device understands wearing person's hand gestures. Because the device size is so small that conventional button-type input system is not appropriate and an entirely new interaction approach is required. So tracking hand regions and recognizing gestures from egocentric video becomes a fundamental and important technique for human computer interaction and activity recognition. Requirements: Matlab or Python; C++ would be an advantage. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 34 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401118 Kim,T-K. (with Kouskouridas,R.) 1017 Semantic segmentation is an important topic in computer vision with great application across many domains. Some examples include content based retrieval and augmented reality. Semantic segmentation possesses many challenges due to object intra-class variation, view-point changes and occlusion. In this project we will explore 1) efficient methods for depth image segmentation and 2) 3D object detection and pose estimation techniques. The student is expected to have good programming skills in C/C++ and/or Matlab, and background to study computer vision and machine learning tools. 3D pose estimation in a new multi-instance RGB-D dataset containing clutter and occlusion 1401118 Kouskouridas,R. (with Kim,T-K.) 3D pose estimation in a new multi-instance RGB-D dataset containing clutter and occlusion 1401178 Fobelets,K. (with Papavassiliou,C.) Feasibility of using thermoelectric powered cycle lights 1A1C1S 1018 1A1C1S 714 3E4D4T Semantic segmentation is an important topic in computer vision with great application across many domains. Some examples include content based retrieval and augmented reality. Semantic segmentation possesses many challenges due to object intra-class variation, view-point changes and occlusion. In this project we will explore 1) efficient methods for depth image segmentation and 2) 3D object detection and pose estimation techniques. The student is expected to have good programming skills in C/C++ and/or Matlab, and background to study computer vision and machine learning tools. Thermoelectricity is the method of converting heat gradients into electrical power. Small thermoelectric generators (TEGs) with a thickness of 0.5 cm and area between 0.25 and 25 cm^2 are commercially available and are used e.g. to charge the battery of pacemakers. When cycling, the body is losing heat while the forced convection is causing cooling, this offers the possibility of heat gradients that can be exploited by thermoelectrics. In this project the student will analyse whether it is possible to scavenge heat from the cyclist to directly or indirectly power LEDs for cycle lights. A demonstrator needs to be built based on the proposed design. A brief overview of the tasks: - study the principles of thermoelectric power generation and check commercially available components - literature search into the use of thermoelectric power generation from body heat - investigate/measure heat gradients that can be generated whilst cycling - investigate the power management system needed to exploit this non-constant heat gradient - investigate LED control systems that can be used with the available power - design a TEG - power management system - LED system for a cyclist - build and test This project will be supervised by Dr. K. Fobelets (thermoelectrics, cyclist) and Dr. C. Papavasilliou (circuits, cyclist). The project is 100% experimental. A keen interest in cycling is advisable. 1400901 Lucyszyn,S. Moonbounce Project: Antenna Tracking System 1400902 Lucyszyn,S. Development of a thermal infrared spectrometer 10 February 2015 602 4D4T4J 602 1A1C1S A harware+software system designed to track the sun and moon was developed last year by an excellent project student. This used predictive methods for tracking. This year I am looking for a similar hard working student that can improve the hardware and software to accurately lock-onto the celestial target. This is a demanding project for a student that is able to write simple software and use this to control the digital hardware and mechanical actuators. This project is ideal for an all-rounder. This project is in collaboration with an existing PhD student. The student must develop the sensor and data acquisition system and write the code to analyze the data. The student must have an interest in analogue and digital circuit design, as well as implement A/D conversion and associate software development. This project is best suited for an all rounder. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 35 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400904 Lucyszyn,S. 602 The student should have an interest in microwave engineering and/or electromagnetics. The student will first develop numerical models of simple resonator structures, using commercial software, which is then extended to more realistic structures. Then experimental validation of the modelling will be performed, with the development of a simple sensor. This project is idea for a pro-active student interested in CAD and experimentation. Electromagnetic Resonator Modelling for Mine Detection 1400905 Lucyszyn,S. Millimetre-wave Photonic Crystals using Novel Metamaterials 1400907 602 4D4T4J 602 3E4D4T3I4J This is a practical project for a student that wants to design, build and test an antenna array. The objective of this project is to be able to transmit and receive signals to the moon and back. This project is ideal for someone that does not mind getting their hands dirty! The student will investigate the pracical limitations to 3D printing of quasi-optical components (e.g. lenses and plated parabolic mirrors). The student will be expected to investigate the effects of imperfections analytically and through numerical modelling (using commercial software). He/she will then design, print, test and evaluate the performance of the structures. This project is ideally suited for someone with an interest in microwave and/or optical engineering. 602 3E4D4T3I4J The student will design, fabricate, measure and evaluate double metamaterial rectangular waveguide components and subsystems. This is an extention of a successful PhD project. The student will design a range of passive components and tuneable circuits operating at 10 GHz. This project is idea for a practical person that likes experimental work in addition to CAD. Sydoruk,O. Coupler for magneto-inductive waveguides In association with the Imperial College Centre for Terahertz Science and Engineering (in collaboration with the Department of Physics and Materials), this project investigates ultra-high quality (Q)-factor resonators for next generation RF electronics applications. The student must design and test transitions from the 2D metamaterial crystal structures to conventional coplanar waveguide probes and microfluidic sensors. The student should ideally have studied, or be currently studying, the E3.18 Microwave Technology course. Lucyszyn,S. Double-metamaterial Rectangular Waveguide Components and Subsystems 1400860 1A1C1S Lucyszyn,S. 3D Printed Quasi-optical Components 1401195 602 Lucyszyn,S. Moonbounce Project Antenna 1401194 1A1C1S 603 1S Optical and Semiconductor Devices Group leads a strong research programme in magneto-inductive waveguides. These waveguides are based on discrete magnetically coupled resonant LC-circuits; their potential applications lie in the fields of magnetic resonance imaging and signal transmission in challenged environments. Further development of the magnetoinductive technology requires a number of waveguide devices. This project will aim at designing a coupler for magneto-inductive waveguides. The student will design lumped-element circuits that will target both standard coupler characteristics (loss, coupling, directivity, isolation) and the characteristics of the magnetoinductive technology (band width). The project is theoretical and involves analytical calculations and simulations in Matlab and/or a circuit simulator. It will suit a student with good analytical skills and knowledge of and interest in wave propagation and the transmission-line theory. 10 February 2015 Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 36 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401175 Sydoruk,O. 603 This is a theoretical project. Resilient magneto-inductive communication Optical and Semiconductor Devices Group leads a strong research programme in magneto-inductive waveguides. These waveguides are based on discrete magnetically coupled resonant LC-circuits. Their potential applications lie in the fields of magnetic resonance imaging and signal transmission in challenged environments, in particular, underground. 3E The LC-circuits in a waveguide are usually arranged in a regular periodic manner. However, the arrangement can be broken, for example, in an industrial accident. In contrast to conventional cables, magneto-inductive waveguides would not be destroyed and could still be used for communication. This project is theoretical and will investigate how well magneto-inductive waveguides can work when some of their elements are displaced or destroyed. It will involve analytical calculations and numerical simulations in Matlab. It will suit a student with interest in waveguides. 1401176 Sydoruk,O. Blind-spot metal detection 603 This is a theoretical project. Standard metal detectors cannot determine the distance to an object. This project will investigate the possibility of metal detection by using blind spots: areas where magnetic field is zero. The position of the blind spots can be controlled, thus giving a possibility to detect ranges. 3E This project is theoretical and will analytical calculations and simulations is Matlab and fastHenry. It will suit a student who succeeded at Fields, Energy Conversion, and Analysis of Circuits courses and who has interest in electromagnetic theory. 1401177 Sydoruk,O. Magneto-inductive displacement detector 1400940 Syms,R.R.A. Control systems with intermittent feedback 1400942 Syms,R.R.A. RF-safe cables for implanted electronic systems 10 February 2015 603 This project will explore the possibility of using magnetically-coupled LC resonators for detecting mechanical displacements. The project could be theoretical, experimental or both. It would suit a student with interest in electromagnetic devices, theory, and simulations. The student will be expected to have taken EE2 Fields course. 702 Linear control systems conventionally have continuous feedback (for example, of position or velocity in a dynamical system). Under some circumstances, however, it may not be possible to observe the position continually, for example if a feedback signal is only available near the extremities of a travel range. The aim of this project is to investigate the circumstances under which a working control system may still be constructed, and evaluate the performance of the resulting controller. The project would suit someone with an interest in control theory and an ability to program in MATLAB and SIMULINK. 3E 3E3I 702 3E3I Implanted electronic systems are increasingly being used to control medical conditions that are beyond the use of drugs, including heart arrhythmia, Parkinson's disease, epilepsy, chronic pain and incontinence. Unfortunately, the electrical cables that are generally used to link the controller with a stimulating electrode can be heated very rapidly by strong electric fields in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The aim of this project is to use simple electrical models to investigate tradeoffs in the design of RF-safe cables. The project would suit someone with an interest in medical physics and the ability to program in MATLAB or SPICE. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 37 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1400963 Syms,R.R.A. 702 The detection of RF signals in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner is carried out using resonant L-C circuits. Because the signals are weak, is important to minimise the pickup of any noise, which arises mainly from the human body itself. Rather than using one large coil (which picks up noise from the whole body), an array of smaller coils is used. Each element detects local signals, together with a much smaller amount of noise. The outputs are then combined together, so that the signals add coherently while the noise adds incoherently. For small numbers of coils, the result is increased signal-to-noise ratio. Unfortunately, it is difficult to prevent each coil being detuned by mutual inductance with its neighbours. The aim of this project is to investigate the effect of feedback in suppressing the coil currents, and hence in reducing mutual inductance. The project would suit someone interested in medical physics and analog circuit design. Array-type detection of MRI signals 1401082 Syms,R.R.A. Array-type detection of MRI signals 1401083 1401085 1401086 10 February 2015 Implanted electronic systems are increasingly being used to control medical conditions that are beyond the use of drugs, including heart arrhythmia, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, chronic pain, and incontinence. Unfortunately, the electrical cables that are generally used to link the controller with a stimulating electrode can be heated very rapidly by strong electric fields in a magnetic resonance imaging scanner. The aim of this project is to use simple electrical models investigate tradeoffs in the design of RF-safe cables. The project would suit someone with an interest in medical physics and the ability to program in MATLAB or PSPICE. 702 Linear control systems conventionally have continuous feedback (for example, of position or velocity in a dynamical system). Under some circumstances, however, it may not be possible to observe the position continually, for example, if a feedback signal is only available over a the extremities of a travel range. The aim of this project is to investigate the circumstances under which a working control system may still be constructed, and to evaluate the performance of the resulting controller. The project would suit someone with an interest in control theory and ability to program in MATLAB and SIMULINK. 702 Military scenarios such as the recruitment and deployment of forces and the attrition of forces resulting from combat can be modelled using systems of coupled differential equations. Because the equations are nonlinear, many surprising solutions are possible. The aim of this project is to investigate the circumstances under which stable, cyclic and chaotic solutions are obtained to combat scenarios involving more than two sets of forces. The project would suit someone with an interest the application of control techniques to the simulation of modern world events, and ability to program in MATLAB and SIMULINK. 702 Some common types of waveguide (e.g. coaxial cables) have simple dispersion characteristics and can propagate signals for long distances without significant distortion. Others are much more dispersive. The aim of this project is to consider the effect of dispersion on the propagation of signals in magneto-inductive waveguides, a type of periodically structured thin-film interconnect currently being developed for human internal detection of magnetic resonance imaging signals. 1C Syms,R.R.A. Signal distortion in highly dispersive interconnects 702 1C Syms,R.R.A. Modelling of nonlinear combat scenarios The detection of RF signals in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner is carried out using resonant L-C circuits. Because the signals are weak, is important to minimise the pickup of any noise, which arises mainly from the human body itself. Rather than using one large coil (which picks up noise from the whole body), an array of smaller coils is used. Each element detects local signals, together with a much smaller amount of noise. The outputs are then combined together, so that the signals add coherently while the noise adds incoherently. For small numbers of coils, the result is increased signal-to-noise ratio. Unfortunately, it is difficult to prevent each coil being detuned by mutual inductance with its neighbours. The aim of this project is to investigate the effect of feedback in suppressing the coil currents, and hence in reducing mutual inductance. The project would suit someone interested in medical physics and analog circuit design. 1A Syms,R.R.A. Control systems with intermittent feedback 702 1A Syms,R.R.A. RF-safe cables for implanted electronic systems 1401084 3E3I 1S Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 38 of 39 PID Supervisor Room Description 1401196 Syms,R.R.A. 702 Counter-terrorism operations often require covert examination of the interior of a building, for example to determine the number of occupants and (ideally) whether or not any are carrying weapons. Radio signals can pass through concrete and brick walls, suggesting that short-range radar might provide a suitable method. However two factors complicate matters. Firstly, the outside wall provides a very large primary reflection. Secondly, the wall is usually strongly attenuating, so that reflections from human targets are small, and buried deeply in a background of clutter. In addition, ranges are very short, and Doppler shifts cannot be used to remove clutter because the human targets move so slowly. Instead, the primary reflection is suppressed using range gating, which requires very short pulses and an ultra-wide-band system. The aim of this project is to develop a simulation model for UWB through-the-wall radar using MATLAB, and examine possible additional approaches to tracking of human targets. Simulation of UWB through-thewall radar 1401199 Syms,R.R.A. Diffraction from nanoscale objects 10 February 2015 3E3I 702 3E4D4T3I4J It is well known that waves tend to spread after passing through a small aperture. This phenomenon is known as diffraction, and among its consequences is an inability to focus light beyond a limit set by its wavelength. It is less well known that waves can also spread when they pass round a small object, so that (for example) the shadow region immediately behind the object can suddenly become bright. The aim of this project is to simulate diffraction effects for a range of objects, to see if careful control of the object shape can allow images to be formed at sizes well below the diffraction limit for light, namely in the nanoscale regime. This project involves Matlab programming and would suit someone with an interest in optics and nanotechnology. Key: 3E= EE BEng, 4D= EE MEng EM, 4T=EE MEng T, 3I = ISE BEng, 4J = ISE MEng Page 39 of 39
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