This studentship aims to address one of the key technical challenges surrounding the ‘storm overflow of raw sewers into UK waters’ faced by the UK water companies.
- Qualification Type: PhD
- Hours: Full Time
- Title of project: Innovative Sensor-Cloud for Sewer Monitoring and Management
- Placed On: 1st February 2022
- Closes: 15th May 2022, or until places have been filled.
Overview
Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in the Department of Engineering. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to work in the Institute of Sensors and Instrumentation.
The focus of this PhD project is to create a sensor-cloud through the integration of a cloud platform and cloud computing with a specialist sensor network, developed for enhanced sewer condition monitoring.
This project aims to address one of the key technical challenges surrounding the ‘storm overflow of raw sewers into UK waters’ faced by the UK water companies.
The year 2020 alone has seen the release of raw sewage into rivers more than 400,000 times, leading to 84% of UK waters in England failing to meet the environmental and ecological requirements.
The innovative solution proposed in this project to address the above challenge is to establish an optical fibre sensor network, integrated with cloud technology for better sewer monitoring and management.
Sensor-clouds are considered as a combination of wireless sensor networks and cloud computing. In this project, however, the wireless sensor network will be replaced by optical fibre sensor network as conventional sensors have shown major limitations and cannot survive for weeks in highly humid and acidic sewer environment in the way that optical fibre sensors can.
Building upon the expertise of the research group at City in the development of specialist optical fibre sensors, the PhD student is expected to establish a custom-oriented cloud platform, both for ease of handling of big data generated from the optical fibre sensor network and for processing the data in an efficient manner, to support better sewer management and decision making.
This project will be undertaken in close collaboration with water companies both in the UK and in Australia.
Eligibility and requirements
The candidate should have an upper second-class BSc/BEng/MEng (or equivalent, or higher) degree in Computer Science or Electrical and Computer Engineering. They should also demonstrate aptitude for original research.
The successful candidate should be able to code comfortably in Python. In addition, candidates are preferred who possess skills in any of the following: (i) MQTT (or other lightweight IoT data transmission protocols); (ii) SQL (database operations); (iii) Cloud message brokers (cloudMQTT, HiveMQ or similar); and (iv) General experience in setting up cloud environments for data transmission/storage/visualisation would be favoured.
A doctoral candidate is expected to meet the following pre-requisites for their PhD:
- Demonstrate a sound knowledge of their research area
- Achieve and demonstrate significant depth in at least a few chosen sub-areas relevant to their primary research area
- Demonstrate the ability to conduct independent research, including a critical assessment of their own and others’ research
Funding
The studentship is for 3 years and will provide full coverage of tuition fees (Home and Overseas) and an annual tax-free stipend of £12,000.
Each student would also have the opportunity to earn around £2.2K pa on an average (max. is around £4.3K pa) through a teaching assistantship. We shall prioritise these scholarship holders while allocating the teaching assistantships.
How to apply
If you are interested in applying, you are encouraged to email initial informal enquiries to Professor Tong Sun OBE FREng.
Visit our Electrical and Electronic Engineering research degrees web page for further information on making a formal application.
When submitting your application, enter the title “Innovative Sensor-Cloud for Sewer Monitoring and Management” and you will automatically be considered for this studentship.
You do not need to submit a proposal as part of your application as the project has already been outlined.
The online application can be found in the ‘How to apply section’ in the web link above and should include the following supporting documents:
- Copies of Degree Certificates and Transcripts in official English translation - original will be requested before an offer is made.
- Official work e-mail addresses (not private ones) for two referees (one of which must be an academic).
- Proof of English Language proficiency (minimum average score of 6.5 IELTS, with a minimum of 6.0 in each of the four components) if English is not your first language.
- Passport.
The outcome of the selection process should be announced by the end of June. The successful candidate will formally start their doctorate either in July or in October 2022.
For queries regarding the application process, please email the School.
Equality, diversity and inclusion
City, University of London is committed to promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in all its activities, processes, and culture, for our whole community, including staff, students and visitors.
We welcome applications regardless of gender, sexual orientation, disability, marital status, race, nationality, ethnic origin, religion or social class. For more information on our approaches to encouraging an inclusive environment, please see our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion pages.