PhD project vacancies
PhD projects and funding opportunities in School of Engineering & Physical Sciences:
Applications for suitably qualified PhD students are accepted all year round. A list of some recently advertised projects are listed below. Please see more information about how to apply for a PhD.
We have world-leading expertise in Vision, Image and Signal Processing, Ocean Systems, Microengineering, Microwaves and Electrical Power and Drives. We also participate in severalresearch pooling initiatives.
Our team of world-leading scientists and engineers has expertise across a broad field of electrical engineering and access to state-of-art facilities, which can assist our industrial partners to resolve existing technical problems and secure leading position in future markets.
You may contact the named supervisor about a particular project opportunity. For more general enquiries, please contact Dr Changhai Wang or Karen Paterson in our postgraduate research office (pgr.eps@eps.hw.ac.uk).
James Watt Scholarships
As part of an ambitious expansion programme to intensify further our world-leading research programmes, Heriot-Watt University is offering a fourth round of James Watt Scholarships in the School of Engineering & Physical Sciences.
The James Watt scholarships will provide full fees and stipend for 3 years from Autumn 2016.
James Watt Scholarship projects leading to a PhD in Electrical Engineering
JWS2016/13 Chlorophyll to grow metals onto non conductive surfaces
We are looking at a student with a material science or engineering background interested in using nature best light harvesting complexes to grow metals into non conductive surfaces. In collaboration with Loughborough University, the applications of your research will impact on 3D printing, electronics and prosthetics.
Supervisor: Prof. Marc Desmulliez, email: m.desmulliez@hw.ac.uk
JWS2016/14 Radio frequency and antenna engineering for space applications
The Microwave and Antenna Engineering Group at Heriot-Watt is working closely with national and international agencies (ESA, NASA, RAL Space) as well as Europe’s leading enterprises to deliver R&D at the forefront of space technologies (see also http://home.eps.hw.ac.uk/~gg35/). Opportunities are available for collaborative PhD projects with aforementioned organisations across a range of topics that include; atmospheric propagation at Q-band, active and passive RF payload components, mm-wave electronics, antenna engineering as well as satellite communication system design.
Supervisor: Prof. George Goussetis, email: G.Goussetis@hw.ac.uk
JWS2016/15 Transceiver Designs for Large Scale Antenna Systems at Millimeter-Wave Frequencies
We are seeking to recruit a highly motivated student willing to work on a research project entitled “Large Scale Antenna Systems Made Practical: Advanced Signal Processing for Compact Deployments [LSAS-SP]” sponsored by UK research council, Bell-Labs, NJ, USA and QinetiQ, UK. See http://gow.epsrc.ac.uk/NGBOViewGrant.aspx?GrantRef=EP/M014126/1 for details. The PhD thesis will explore signal processing techniques for efficient analogue/digital beamforming, precoding and receiver designs for Large Scale Antenna Systems at mm-wave frequencies.
Supervisor: Dr Mathini Sellaturai, email: M.Sellathurai@hw.ac.uk
JWS2016/16 Smart Interfaces for Converged Wireless and Optical Networks
For the end-to-end design and performance evaluation of converged wireless and optical networks, methods for seamless physical interconnection of a variety of technologies are indispensable. This project aims to design novel agile, programmable, and scalable interfaces interconnecting different wireless and optical technologies at the transport layer.
Supervisor: Dr Cheng-Xiang Wang, email: Cheng-Xiang.Wang@hw.ac.uk
JWS2016/17 Analysis of Raman spectra using hyperspectral imaging methods
Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for light/matter interaction analysis which can be used in chemistry to detect, identify and quantify specific molecules. Although produced by different acquisition systems, Raman spectra and reflectance spectra recorded by passive hyperspectral sensors for remote sensing applications (e.g., earth and space observation) present many similarities. The aim of this project is to develop new computational tools for Raman spectroscopy, inspired by models and methods dedicated to hyperspectral image analysis (e.g., classification, source separation, non-stationary processes).
Supervisor: Prof Stephen McLaughlin, email: s.mclaughlin@hw.ac.uk
JWS2016/18 RF signal processing for the networked battlespace
In this project you will research new algorithms and sensors for RF signal detection in hostile environments from a network of mixed quality sensors. You will particularly focus on the signal processing algorithms to detect, identify and locate the source of various RF signals in difficult environments with high levels of background noise and strong fading channels.
Supervisors: Dr Mathini Sellaturai, email: M.Sellathurai@hw.ac.uk and Prof. George Goussetis, email: G.Goussetis@hw.ac.uk
JWS2016/19 Compressive Sensing for Interferometry: new imaging techniques for transformational science
The transformational science envisaged for the next decades in astronomy requires that future telescopes, such as the flagship Square Kilometer Array (SKA), achieve unprecedented dynamic ranges and angular resolutions on wide frequency bands. In this context, interferometric imaging techniques literally and urgently need to be re-invented. The project will leverage the theory of compressive sampling to help defining new sensing and reconstruction approaches for ultra-high resolution wide-band imaging. Fast reconstruction algorithms capable of handling Big Data will be studied and adapted to multi-core computing architectures.
Supervisor: Dr Yves Wiaux, email: y.wiaux@hw.ac.uk
How to apply for James Watt Scholarship
For more information about how to apply, please see the full list of James Watt Scholarship projects.
Development, evaluation and comparison of algorithms for LiDAR and Radar automotive sensing in bad weather.
Applications accepted all year round
Funded PhD Project
Project Description
Optical sensors perform poorly in fog, rain and snow, but new developments in, for example, full waveform processing of LiDAR developed at HWU may extend the instrumental capability in poor weather. Similarly, 3D mapping (stereo, optical flow) and scene interpretation from video data is adversely affected when the target signature and any subsequent feature vector is degraded. Radar and THz imaging perform well in adverse conditions, but have lower frame rates and poorer resolution.
This is an opportunity for a new PhD student to join a newly formed collaborative project between the Universities of Heriot-Watt, Birmingham and Edinburgh, and Jaguar Land Rover to develop, compare and contrast new approaches to 3D scene building and object (e.g. pedestrians, vehicles, termed ‘actors’) identification in adverse weather, unlike the vast majority of current autonomous and assisted vehicle sensing projects that use benchmark data sets and scenarios in favourable conditions. The student will work with a fully equipped test vehicle or vehicles, with video, LiDAR and low THZ Radar sensors, as well as the usual GPS and road mapping data.
We will consider students with a good undergraduate or postgraduate background in Electrical or Software Engineering, or Physics, although an ability to develop, implement and evaluate algorithms and conduct experiments is essential.
Heriot-Watt’s Institutes of Signals, Sensors and Systems, and Photonics and Quantum Sciences offer a thriving environment for PhD research, with over 100 active academics and researchers in each institute. Heriot-Watt is based in a modern environment on the outskirts of Edinburgh, with excellent transport links to the centre of one of Europe’s most exciting cities. For further information about our many and varied research programmes please refer to http://www.hw.ac.uk/schools/engineering-physical-sciences/.
Funding Notes
All tuition fees are paid and we offer an enhanced stipend for 3.5 years.
References and Application
Please supply academic transcripts and 2 reference letters or 2 reference contact names. If applying for this position online, please ensure that you provide a reference to this position.
Further Information
For further information about the JLR/EPSRC initiative and the project portfolio, see
For informal enquires about the position, please contact a.m.wallace@hw.ac.uk in the first instance.
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