U R O P Projects 2012

Exploring the Raspberry Pi platform

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Robert Harle, Computer Laboratory

Full information on Digital Technology Group run UROPs are available here

Project Description:

The Raspberry Pi boards are credit-card sized computers with the aim of encouraging exploration of computers and computer science in schools. At less than 25 GBP, the hardware is flying off the shelves. The key to its success in education is now the educational materials available for it. The Computer Laboratory is looking for five or more students to create new educational materials for the Raspberry Pi. It is intended that each student has a specific project that they are involved in developing. Possible directions might include:

Rewriting classic arcade games for the platform, providing tutroials that students could follow.

Developing hardware hacks that make use of the board's connectivity.

Interfacing with android.

Writing custom bootloaders to teach the fundamentals of OS.

The scope is great, and we would be very happy to have students suggest specific projects that they believe would boost the educational potential of the Raspberry Pi.

• Familiarity with a mainstream programming language (abilities equivalent to Workbook 7 of the IA CST Programming in Java course would be sufficient) is needed. No familiarity with the Raspberry Pi will be assumed.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor, stating which project you are applying for and attach a copy of your CV.

• Insertion Date: 23/03/2012

Network at 10G performance evaluation

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Andrew Moore, Computer Laboratory

Project Description:

The computer laboratory is engaged in a range of networking activities with 10G networking. We need some basic research done to evaluate a number of 10G scenarios and to evaluate our new, experimental, platforms. This UROP would be doing basic research, performance evaluation and contributing greatly to our work in this field.

We anticipate this work becoming the baseline and standard-procedure work for evaluating performance and is intended to contribute results to a publication in the next 12 months.

For more information about NetFPGA click here.

Your work will provide an important part of the Cambridge contribution to this project - your work will be used by others in coming years, not only here in Cambridge but at many education and research settings.

• This work may lead third year (CST) project as appropriate.

• This UROP will run for 10 weeks from the second week of July, it is ideal if you can be in Cambridge for all of the following ten weeks.P>

• Prerequisites: Experience with linux, linux kernel work, and the C and python (or perl) programming languages - sys-admin knowledge of computer networks will also help.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 23/03/2012

MEMS sensor power management electronics

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Ashwin Seshia, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Development in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) and their demonstrated co-integration with CMOS electronics have enabled the creation of smart sensing systems in a small form factor package with the potential to co-integrate sensing with signal processing, computation and communication electronics much more cohesively than possible with alternative technologies. This convergence of technologies has opened up the possibility of large-scale distributed wireless sensing systems as candidates for structural health monitoring.

This project will investigate the development of board-level low power electronics for MEMS devices developed in our group for structural health monitoring applciations. The project will commence with investigating limits to power dissipation in MEMS and contribute to practical approaches for low-power interface circuit design for MEMS devices.

The applicant should have completed two years of an undergraduate degree in the Engineering or Natural Sciences tripos prior to the commencement of the UROP in summer 2012. A background/interest in the design of low-power electronics and sensor systems is desirable. The selected candidate will work collaboratively together with a PhD student and post-doctoral researcher embedded in the Centre.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 03/05/2012

Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) Demonstrations

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Jize Yan, Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction Demonstrations, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

The CSIC brings together leading research groups at Cambridge drawn from Department of Engineering, Computer Laboratory, Judge Business School and Department of Architecture. This project is to showcase the use of emerging technologies in sensor and data management, coupled with emerging best practice in the form of the latest manufacturing and supply chain management approaches applied to construction and infrastructure.

There is room for several students in the project. Students have the opportunity to deal with practical problems, be involved in large CSIC research projects and work together with CSIC industrial partners. Each student can choose to investigate one or more of the following topics:

1) Powering a WSN Hardware with Ambient Energy (Solar, Heat, Vibration)

2) Low-power sensor networks using commercially available 8-bit or 16-bit wireless radio platforms

3) Crowd sourcing of data using smart phone (iPad/Android) applications

4) Smart Energy Storage Systems for Energy Harvesters

5) Small Scale Low Power WSN Hardware for infrastructure Monitoring

6) Other ideas from students

• The students would be expected to have good practical skills and work in a laboratory.

• This is likely to continue into a 4th year project.

• This project is being co-supervised by several others from the Department of Engineering: Professor Kenichi Soga, Paul Fidler,and Dr Nawaz.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 07/05/2012

Network simulator development.

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Andrew Moore, Computer Laboratory

Project Description:

As part of instituting new practical classes to compliment a revamped Computer Networking subject; this work will construct new practicals based on a network simulator framework and I will be looking for help in this process. The practicals are to be based on infrastructure/equipment that will support practical labs for undergraduate and graduate subjects as well as providing the core facilities for relevant research projects. This work is being done under the umbrella of the NetFPGA project - an international education and research project and will provide the core of Cambridge contribution back to this project - your work will be used by others in coming years, not only here in Cambridge but at many education and research settings.

• Prerequisites: Java will be the main programming language but you will be aided by experience with linux, the C and python programming languages.

• Knowledge of computer networks is essential.

• This UROP will run for 10 weeks from the second week of July, it is ideal if you can be in Cambridge for all of the following ten weeks.

• This work can lead to a third year (CST) project; if appropriate

• More information: on Dr Andrew Moore ~ ~ NetFPGA ~ ~ Building an Internet Router

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 27/04/2012

NetFPGA 10G port framework

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Andrew Moore, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

NetFPGA has been a huge success in the research and teaching communities. This has led to many systems being developed for the NetFPGA 1G. A great deal of excitement is occurring with the release of the NetFPGA 10G board.

This project would work directly with NetFPGA 10G systems. Objectives of this work would be to port a reference design from the NetFPGA 1G system to the 10G system.

This will involve learning Verilog (if you have Verilog or VHDL experience, please mention this in your application) and then writing code and documenting your work.

Your work will provide an important part of the Cambridge contribution to this project - your work will be used by others in coming years, not only here in Cambridge but at many education and research settings.

For more information click here.

• This UROP would suite a CST student who enjoyed ECAD or computer networks; this is not a restriction this UROP will suite others too.

• This work can lead to a third year (CST) project; if appropriate.

• This UROP will run for 10 weeks from the second week of July, it is ideal if you can be in Cambridge for all of the following ten weeks.

• Prerequisites: Experience with linux, the C and python (or perl) programming languages, and sys-admin knowledge of computer networks.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 23/03/2012

Energy harvesting

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Ashwin Seshia, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Energy harvesting technology is viewed as a key enabler for the development of a range of structural health monitoring solutions where the use of batteries or mains power is either impractical or impossible. The development of energy harvesting solutions can be used to substantially enhance battery lifetime or potentially eliminate their use completely thereby minimising the requirement for repeated manual intervention.

This project addresses the development of macro-scale piezoelectric energy harvesters and MEMS-based devices for vibrational energy harvesting. The devices will be validated in the context of real measured vibration data with applications to powering sensor nodes embedded in a wireless network for large-scale infrastructure monitoring. The project will form part of the newly established Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction.

The applicant should have completed two years of an undergraduate degree in the Engineering or Natural Sciences tripos prior to the commencement of the UROP in summer 2012. A background/interest in mechanical vibrations, dynamical systems and low-power electronics is desirable. The selected candidate will work collaboratively together with a PhD student and post-doctoral researcher embedded in the Centre.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 03/05/2012

Programming spatially explicit models for the control of tree disease

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Nik Cunniffe Department of Plant Sciences

Project Description:

Emerging and endemic diseases threaten tree populations worldwide. Prominent and pressing examples include sudden oak death in both the UK and the USA, the resurgence of Dutch elm disease in the UK, and citrus canker and huanglongbing in the USA and in Brazil.

Recent mathematical and computational work in the Epidemiology and Modelling Group in the Department of Plant Sciences (http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/chrisgilligan.html) has led to a suite of spatially-explicit stochastic simulation models that has been parameterised using real data to predict the future progress of each of these diseases. The models are at scales from a few square kilometres (see http://www.webidemics.com/ for an interactive example) to the scale of entire states and/or countries (see http://www.plantsci.cam.ac.uk/research/cunniffe/images/Fig1-lg.jpg). The models can include control strategies (e.g. detecting and cutting down affected trees), and can therefore be used to predict the likely effectiveness and cost-efficiency of controls. The focus of this student project will be exactly that: examining the effect on future spread of a number of potential different controls for a number of diseases, and thereby determining which controls are likely to be optimal.

Person Description:

We are searching for two or three UROP students for this project, ideally from a Mathematics, Physics or Engineering background. Although we do not wish to be too prescriptive, an ideal preparation would involve strong programming in C or C++ (to read and/or alter the code in the models themselves when necessary).

Additionally previous experience in a scripting language such as Perl or Python (to parse the outputs of the models) and some knowledge of UNIX (the extensive computation underlying this project requires use of the University’s cluster computing resources) would both be advantageous. However neither is essential, as training can be provided. We can also be flexible about start and end dates.

For more information CLICK HERE

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Developing a framework for value-based asset management

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Ajith Parlikad, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Asset Management decisions such as maintenance and inspection planning, refurbishment timing etc. are typically made by the asset owners by balancing the costs of the intervention and risks posed by the asset if the intervention is not carried out. Consideration of the interests of different stakeholders (e.g., asset owner, asset operator, asset user) and the trade-offs involved are often missing in the relevant academic literature. For instance, in the rail sector, London Underground is responsible for running and operating the network, organisations such as Tubelines are responsible for maintaining certain lines in the network, and the general public are the users of the network. Due to the complexity of the problem, in industry, such decisions are made in an unstructured manner.

This project attempts to tackle following fundamental problems in infrastructure asset management:

• To identify the key value drivers for different stakeholders of a typical infrastructure asset


• To define an effective common value space and a metric system that are acceptable to public and private stakeholders of infrastructure assets.

Approach

This project will involve the following tasks:

1. Review of the academic literature to understand how value-based asset management has been applied/approached in other industry sectors (e.g., O&G)


2. Review of Industry reports, policy documents to understand how infrastructure assets deliver value to different stakeholders


3. Interviews with infrastructure owners and operators to understand key value drivers


4. Develop a framework to quantify value of an infrastructure asset over its lifecycle

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 04/05/2012

Finding new attacks on mobile phones

Contact:Lead Supervisor: : Prof Ross Anderson, Computer Laboratory

Project Description:

The aim of this project is to find new attacks on mobile phones. It is sponsored by Samsung which wants to improve security in order to make mobiles more attractive as a platform for payments.

Security is a broad topic and there are many ways in which the bad guys might commit frauds against users of mobile wallets.

As an example: is it possible for software running on a mobile phone to work out the PIN that is being entered into the device and read by other software? Keystroke dynamics have been studied for conventional keyboards; can anything new be said about touch-screen phones?

Other possible approaches might be suggested by recent research papers on malware in the Android marketplace; for examples click here.

We have room for 2–3 students on this project, and it's up to you to come up with a line of attack that you find interesting and that we feel has some chance of coming up with something novel.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

Developing a dynamic web interface for a literature search tool

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr. Anna Korhonen, Computer Laboratory

Project Description:

In collaboration with cancer researchers at Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, we are developing a a research tool that can read vast amounts of scientific literature, make connections between facts and develop hypotheses for cancer risk assessment. This tool is based on natural language processing and text mining technology, and has already proved useful for practical tasks.

However, the interface of the tool would benefit from further development. We would like to build a dynamic web-interface which allows scientists to select and download their literature of interest (e.g. MEDLINE articles focussing on a certain chemical), classify the literature according to the classifier we have developed, visualise the results in various ways, query the classified data for particular patterns, and extract statistical summaries from the data.   

• The ideal applicant should have experience in web-based techniques (HTML, CSS, XML, PHP) and basic statistical packages, have interest in graphics and visualisation, and be willing to work together with the end users to develop  a maximally useful interface.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 14/03/2012

Developing a framework to identify through-life asset information requirements

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Ajith Parlikad, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Asset Management decisions such as maintenance and inspection planning, refurbishment timing etc. require a variety of information regarding the asset, the business, the operating environment etc. Moreover, in the infrastructure sector, there are multiple stakeholders involved in the use and management of the asset. For instance, in the rail sector, London Underground is responsible for running and operating the network, organisations such as Tubelines are responsible for maintaining certain lines in the network, and the general public are the users of the network. Each of these stakeholders might have conflicting views on what information is important. Hence, infrastructure asset owners and operators are often puzzled by the question: “what information should I gather to support my asset throughout its lifecycle?” This project attempts to develop a framework to understand the information requirements for effective management of infrastructure assets.

Approach

This project will involve the following tasks:

1. Review of the academic literature to understand information requirements for asset management decisions.


2. Interviews with infrastructure owners and operators to understand information requirements from the point-of-view of different stakeholders


3. Develop a framework to identify through-life information requirements.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 04/05/2012

Finite element analysis and experimental measurement of forces in an electronic bond test

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr. Digby Symons, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

This project concerns mechanical testers for electronic bonds (solder bumps, balls, wire bonds etc). The test machines grip bumps or studs, these are solder, gold, or copper structures which are currently >100 microns in size. In order to do this they are trapped in a cavity, which plastically deforms the top of the pillar or bump to give something to grip and pull on. The problem is to try and extend this down to <20microns, at which point the amount of material to plastically deform is a significant portion of the structure and may not support enough load to pull the object off the substrate. The project will require non-linear finite element simulation backed up by experimental results (e.g force data and/or high speed video).
 

The project will build on the progress made by a previous UROP and 4th year project.

• To further develop and prove a modeling technique of small semiconductor geometry physical testing.
• Correlate a finite element model of clamping and pulling of a fine wire with experimental results..
• Use the same modeling to look at the effect of geometrical parameters..

The project is in collaboration with Dage Precision Industries Ltd. For further information see WEB SITE

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 10th May 2012

DEVELOPING A TRACJECTORY-BASED CONTROL ALGORITHM FOR EXCAVATORS USING LEGO MINDSTORMS

Lead Supervisor: Prof. John Clarkson. Contact:Dr. Alexander Komashie ~ Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Current excavators are controlled using a number of hydraulic actuators which individually move portions of the entire arm. An operator has to use a combination of movements of the actuators to achieve a desired movement of the bucket.

This project aims at developing the concept of a trajectory-based control algorithm and testing the concept using Lego Mindstorms Technology. The objectives include:

• Exploring the feasibility of trajectory-based control algorithm for excavators

• Solving the dynamic problem

• Developing the algorithm

• Implementing the algorithm in Lego Mindstorms

• Interfacing the Mindstorms with an existing model of an excavator

• Testing the system and reporting

• This project is suitable for an engineering student at any level but with interest in Lego Mindstorms.

• The student would join two other students who are already working on another engineering application of Lego Mindstorms.

• NB: This project is funded by JCB (http://www.jcb.co.uk/).

• Please apply to Contact. For more information about Dr Komashie Click Here

• Insertion Date: 03/07/2012


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Patient Centred capacity Modelling in Healthcare Using Discrete Event Simulation Modelling

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr. Alexander Komashie ~ Department of Engineering

Project Description:

A present reality in the NHS in England is the need to do more with less. Current political and economic realities also indicate that this pressure will grow even further. However, there appears to be a lack of a sound theoretical framework to help NHS managers understand the implications of changes in capacity on patient experience. By conceptualising the healthcare system as a discrete event system, the project would use a systems approach and queuing theory to explore the feasibility of developing a theoretical framework for relating available capacity to the patient experience measures against which services are assessed. This would involve working closely with Trust managers, developing process maps and mapping out patient journeys in addition to using the SIMIO simulation package (www.simio.com) to model, simulate and conduct experiments with the model. The project is expected to lead to a comprehensive research proposal to be submitted for a grant at the end of the summer. This could also potentially lead to an exciting final year project. The successful student should also be willing to make a few journeys to Slough, Bracknell or Reading for meetings with the collaborating NHS Trusts.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor. For more information about Dr Komashie Click Here

• Insertion Date: 29/06/2012

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Impacts of Climate Modelling on Regional Water Availability

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Geoffrey T. Parker ~ Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Global Climate Models (GCMs) are used by the IPCC and others to predict the significance and extent of global climate change, based on a set of assumptions called 'scenarios' or 'stories'. Much infrastructure relies on a minimum availability of suitable water, and in particular rainwater runoff and river flows.

This 10-week project will examine regional water balances implied by current GCMs, assess the degree of uncertainty from these predictions, and examine the severity of likely impacts, particularly on water infrastructure and allocation.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 24/04/2012

Using correlated electron materials for cooling to sub-Kelvin temperatures

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr F M Grosche ~ Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory (QM group)

Project Description:

Adiabatic demagnetisation of a paramagnetic salt has been a highly successful cooling method in low temperature physics since the late 1920's. It relies on the fact that the entropy of materials with free magnetic moments depends very strongly on magnetic field. The main disadvantages of this technique, however, are the low thermal conductivity of the refrigerant material and the low density of magnetic moments.  These disadvantages could be overcome by using metals as refrigerants, instead of the insulating paramgnetic salts which are normally used. In many strongly correlated electron metals the entropy at low temperatures can be very large and field dependent.

We will examine literature data on candidate materials, including YbCo2Zn20 and other members of this structure family, in order to identify a promising material. Then, we will grow the material in our sample preparation laboratory, characterise the resulting samples at low temperatures, and prepare a refrigerant pill from this new material. We will then test the usefulness of this alternative refrigerant in reaching low temperatures.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• This project could develop into a fourth-year project.

• Insertion Date: 24/04/2012

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Monitoring underwater pipelines for leak and damage using optical fibre instrumentation

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Elshafie, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

We would like to setup an experiment in which we can test a pipe underwater for leaks and for damage using the optical fibre instrumentation. The experiment is designed to investigate the issues that are associated with monitoring underwater.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 03/05/2012

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Power management circuit for smart energy storage system for infrastructure monitoring application

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Jize Yan, Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction Demonstrations, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This project will contribute to develop a special power source system integrated with batteries, supercapacitors and smart power management circuits to encompass variable input power from different energy resources and provide multiscale output power in the range from milliwatts to watts to maximize the energy usage to satisfy different requirements in various infrastructure monitoring applications. The new power system will offer an energy solution with higher energy density, longer cycle life and less power dissipation comparing with traditional power sources. Furthermore, the system will offer multiscale input and output power options, which can largely increase the energy efficiency, achieved by integrating battery groups and supercapacitor arrays with smart power flow control circuits. System prototype and application demonstration will be constructed along the project.

This project is a collaborative project between the Department of Engineering and the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology.

Along the project, the student can focus on the hardware design of power management circuit, target at matlab simulink model for power flow and system control or study batteries/supercapacitors.

• The successful applicant will probably be studying engineering or chemical engineering. Knowledge in analogue electronics, power electronics or matlab simulink is a plus.

• This project is likely to continue into a 4th year project?

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 07/05/2012

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MOBILE APPS for surveying in the developing world

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Jose Vallejo , Department of Engineering

Project Description:

The Eco-House Initiative is a multidisciplinary programme that aims to develop appropriate technology to facilitate the sustainable development of the urban developing world. The Initiative has more than 120 Cambridge students and academics involved that in a yearly basis help to improve the living standards of 32000 houses household in Latin America.

We are looking for a student to develop a mobile app which will be used by volunteers to collect survey data in South America. It will help monitor the sustainability for housing access to poor people in urban areas. Data will be stored locally and uploaded to a central database when possible.

The platform the application is to be developed for will be agreed with the student at the start of the placement. PhoneGap or web solutions may also be explored. All the context and infer required will be provided to the student.

Applicants should have some experience developing apps or at least in an object oriented language and a willingness to learn.

The UROP is anticipated to be 5 weeks in duration during July - August-September this could be accommodate to the student-supervisors plans.

There is also an option to continue in 4-year projects and be part of the Eco-house Initiative, as well as do field research in Latin America in the coming year.p>

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 13 June 2012 (Back to List)

Developing a microsimulation tool for activity patterns in the UK based on the National Travel Survey

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Alex Hagen-Zanker, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This project contributes to a collaborative project by the Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction on transport infrastructure performance.

The objective is to develop a high resolution simulation model for activity patterns in the UK. The model will primarily use data from the National Travel Survey which is highly disaggregated in terms of activities, transport and timing, and based on a large sample of the population. Further to that, data from the Office of National Statistics on demographics and land use, which is disaggregated in terms of geographical distribution, will be used.

The project will apply Bayesian methods for generalizing and disaggregating to create a model for the whole population that is disaggregated in terms of activities, their timing and geographical location and has well quantified uncertainties.

• This role would suit a student with skills in Database, Matlab and Statistics.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 03/05/2012

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Reaching the quantum limit in Bismuth under high pressure

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr F M Grosche ~ Department of Physics, Cavendish Laboratory (QM group)

Project Description:

The semimetal bismuth has tiny Fermi surface pockets, corresponding to its low carrier concentration. This makes it relatively easy to detect quantum oscillatory phenomena in high magnetic fields. These are caused by the quantisation of electronic states in applied fields into highly degenerate Landau levels, which pass through the chemical potential as the field is varied. The period of oscillation and the temperature dependence of the oscillation amplitude are related to the cross-sectional area of the Fermi surface and to the effective mass of the electrons. 

In this project we will measure quantum oscillations in bismuth under pressure. Because the carrier density decreases with increasing pressure, we will be able to reach the quantum limit, where the lowest Landau level reaches the chemical potential, at relatively low fields, allowing us not only to follow the evolution of the Fermi surface with pressure but also to look for novel phenomena beyond the quantum limit. See, e.g. [Behnia et al. Science 317, 1729 (2007)] for ideas of what can happen.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• This project could develop into a fourth-year project.

• Insertion Date: 24/04/2012

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Floating Extensional Flows

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof. M.G. Worster ~ Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

There are many technological processes in which viscous fluids are required to spread across a substrate. When the substrate is solid, for example in the spin coating of data-storage disks, the fluid that forms the coating is resisted dominantly by viscous shear stresses generated at the rigid boundary. Such thin-film flows have been extensively studied over the past few decades, both experimentally and theoretically.

On the other hand, if the substrate is itself fluid, for example in the production of float glass formed by spreading molten glass over molten tin, then the thin viscous fluid layer is resisted dominantly by internal strain. The equations describing such flows (mixed elliptic and hyperbolic) are more complex and display richer behaviour than the parabolic equations describing shear-dominated thin-film flows.

There have been some mathematical studies of idealised two-dimensional and axisymmetric strain-dominated floating viscous layers. In this project, the aim is to investigate the influence of horizontal shear caused by contact with lateral boundaries. The student will be mostly involved in an experimental study of this scenario, using either golden syrup (a Newtonian fluid) or Xanthan (a shear-thinning fluid) floating and spreading over layers of relatively dense, inviscid salt solutions in a side-walled channel.

The results will be compared with recent theoretical studies, and there may be an opportunity for the student to develop those studies or to devise and implement numerical codes to apply those theories to the specific experiments.

• This project is suitable for students who have completed Part IB in Mathematics, Engineering or a physical science.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 24/04/2012

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Suitability Analysis of Small-Scall Water Supply Alternatives

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Geoffrey T. Parker ~ Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This 10-week project will examine the question of selecting and improving upon water supply scenarios for modular housing solutions. The project will review existing alternative technologies for suitability and resilience across a range of implementation scales, locations, and context.

The review will be supplemented by analysis of aggregate performance measures (e.g. intensity, duration and frequency of human-health-at-risk events). This analysis will be assembled and summarized into a range of support models (e.g. design curves) to provide decisions support and alternative screening in small scale residential housing contexts.

• This project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding therefore application criteria applies.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 24/04/2012

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Fabrication of a sub-micron ultrasound transducer

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof Richard Prager ~ Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Ultrasound can potentially provide an imaging system at higher resolution than an optical microscope because the speed of sound is so much lower than the speed of light. This could provide an ability to track the motion of biological chemical molecules in real time as they interact which could revolutionise biomedical research. The great challenge is to build a transducer array that is small enough to operate on nanometre length scales.

This project involves fabricating and characterising part of a nano-scale piezoelectric ultrasound transducer array that is formed from piezoelectric zinc-oxide nanowires (typically less than 1 µm in diameter and over 10 µm long). The work will involve using a zinc acetate dihydrate solution heated to ~80 °C to create the nanowires on a zinc oxide thin film which will form a lower electrode. A polymer (either parylene or SU8 photoresist) will be used to infill the gaps between the nanowires allowing a top electrical contact to be made. This will allow an electric field to be applied to the nanowires and a piezoelectric response to be measured. This response will be characterised. Alternative geometries of nanowires and electrodes may also be considered. The results will be used to simulate the performance of the individual elements which will enable the design of a complete imaging array.

• The successful applicant will probably be studying engineering, chemical engineering, materials science or physics. They will have good practical skills and be expected to work in a Clean Room environment.

• This project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding therefore application criteria applies.

• The work will be based at Electrical Engineering (West Cambridge site) and will take 10 weeks.

• co-lead with Dr Andrew Flewitt, Electronic Devices and Materials Group ~ Department of Engineering

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 17/04/2012

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Developing a Labview interface to control a system collecting data by Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy under a strong applied magnetic field.

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof. Michael Carpenter ~ Department of Earth Sciences

Project Description:

We have funding to develop a unique instrument, based on Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (RUS), for measuring elastic and anelastic properties of small ceramic or single crystal samples as a function of temperature (1.5-300K) and magnetic field strength (0-14 Teslas).

The instrument should be able to run unattended for several days collecting spectra under varying conditions. We are looking for a summer student with proven expertise in developing instrument control interfaces using NI Labview. Vis are already available for several of the system components, this project will involve linking these VIs together and building a user front end for the routine collection of experimental data.

  The successful applicant will have completed second or third year of studies with a record of 2:1 grades or better.

• The work will run over a period of circa 4 weeks.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 10/04/2012

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Melt ponds in summer sea ice

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr. Jerome Neufeld ~ Department of Earth Sciences

Project description:

Public interest in the state of the polar oceans has recently been focused by predictions of an ice-free Arctic within the next few decades.However, our ability to predict the areal extent of sea ice relies crucially on the surface albedo, or reflectivity, for which a predictive model does not currently exist. In the spring and summer melt seasons the surface albedo is dominated by the presence of melt ponds, whose dark interior absorbs significantly more solar radiation than reflective ice and snow.

This project aims to elucidate the physical basis for the areal extent of summer melt ponds by examining the localization of fluid flowing on the surface of floating elastic sheets.

Our approach will be threefold. Experimentally melt water on sea ice will be modeled using a viscous fluid (glycerin or silicone oil) propagating over a floating elastic sheet (PDMS floating on salt water) which we have already shown exhibits steady states of finite areal extent and intriguing buckling patterns.Theoretically we will examine both the propagation of viscous gravity currents over a floating, elastically deforming substrate and determine the characteristic steady-state areal extent as a function of fluid volume and hence melt rate.By fully understanding the dynamics of this simpler system we aim to create a predictive model of the areal extent of summer melt ponds by tying local melt rates with the areal extent of sea ice, and hence produce a predictive model of the albedo of melting sea ice.

The successful applicant:

• must be studying for a degree in a quantitative discipline,
• will have completed second or third year of studies with a record of 2:1 grades or better
• must have have an interest in experimental approaches to fluid-dynamics.
• must be eligible for subsequent NERC PhD funding (e.g. UK, EU or with right to remain in the UK)
• full details of eligibility are at: CLICK HERE

• The work will run over a period of between 8-10 weeks.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 10/04/2012

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Bayesian Material Selection

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof. David Cebon, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Bayesian inference engines are able to making deductions about real-world objects that underlie some observed data: for instance, track multiple people in a video sequence, or identify repeated mentions of people and organizations in a set of text documents.   There is thought to be significant benefit in using Bayesian techniques to aid materials selection/substitution based on uses of materials.  The idea is to take a substantial amount of material data - either from a database or using free text in an encyclopaedic reference source - and use a Bayesian approach to build an intuitive materials selector.

• A suitable student will likely be an engineer, computer scientist or applied mathematician, with good programming skills and some understanding of statistics.

• Project duration:  10-12 weeks

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 05/04/2012

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Computer-aided Corrosion Predictor

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof David Cebon, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

This project will develop a prototype tool to warn designers of the likelihood of electrolytic corrosion occurring in their product.   The conditions for electrolytic corrosion are difficult for designers to detect, because they depend on the electrical interaction of two or more materials with different electrode potentials, possibly through a common environment (electrolyte).  The idea of the project is to develop a tool that resides within a Computer Aided Design package.  The tool will detect the materials present in a solid model, determine the possible conduction paths, etc, and then evaluate the likelihood of an electrochemical cell occurring.

The work will involve a significant amount of programming (probably in C++), making use of the API (Application Programming Interface) available within a popular CAD program.  The project will also require the student to be reasonably up-to-speed with electrolytic corrosion.

• Suitable students will likely be either:

  an engineer or materials scientist with good programming skills; or

  a computer scientist with a willingness to do a crash-course in corrosion.

• Project duration:  10-12 weeks

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 05/04/2012

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The molecular basis of temperature perception in plants

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Phil Wigge, Sainsbury Laboratory

Project Description:

Research in the Wigge lab is focused on understanding the molecular basis of temperature perception in plants. Temperature is a key environmental factor that has dramatic consequences on plant development, limiting the global distribution of plant species and significantly affecting crop yields. Remarkably, despite an extensive knowledge of how plants respond to temperature, little is known of the molecular mechanisms by which temperature is perceived in the first place.

To identify novel genes involved in temperature perception, the lab is currently carrying out extensive genetic screens and analyzing natural variation in temperature perception using the extensive genomics resources being developed for Arabidopsis genome wide association (GWA) mapping. The student will assist an experienced post-doctoral research associate in conducting the natural variation screen and will be exposed to cutting edge high-throughput technologies and gene mapping techniques.

Supporting Information available here

Co-supervisor: Dr Mathew Box, Sainsbury Laboratory

• The student should be enthusiastic, with a keen interest in plant biology.

• Preference will be given to students with some prior lab experience.

• This project is recommended for 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates, unless sufficient experience can be demonstrated.

• Possible 4th year project: Dependent on outcome.

• This project is available from 25th June for 10 weeks.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 04/04/2012

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Eye Tracking for Behavioural Study

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Eiko Yoneki, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

In this project you would use eye tracking device to extract unconscious behaviour of people when they use online social network tools. Example questions to solve are how people make a decision to re-tweet in Twitter or post a wall comments in Facebook.

We will provide an eye tracking experiment device, which can automatically record the web browser and monitor’s information from the participant’s eye movement. You would design the experimental setting up and goal of the experiment.

Our on-going photo rating experiments (use username test and email address test@gmail.com and try out) can be used as an experimental material to complement the extracting data. You can also provide feedback information (e.g. how the other people rated, what is the average of rating) from the participant’s social clique.

As an extension, you could write an economic gaming application to capture the participant’s behaviour on decision making for competitive tasks. The work is based on the EU FP7 RECOGNITION project and RECOGNITION

• This role is suitable for the student, who is interested in data analytics and experimental work.

• This role could develop into a 4th year project.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 28/03/2012

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Virtual Disease Spread Simulation by Android Phones

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Eiko Yoneki, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

In this project you would build an Android application called ‘Virtual Disease’ on the smart phone using the opportunistic network framework haggle architecture (open source project by our research group http://code.google.com/p/haggle/).

The application broadcasts information about virtual diseases. It is infected to all devices in range, and receiving devices are infected by these virtual diseases based on a simple probability calculation. The application logs all incoming diseases and stores information regarding how they are processed. Communication is based on hybrid architecture of WiFi and Bluetooth. GPS location information can be recorded optionally.

You would deploy different disease models embedded in the phone and showing various information on the phone including infection heat map.

This project is an extended version from the FluPhone project which was reported in the BBC here.

• This role is suitable for students with experience of Android phone programming.

• This role could develop into a 4th year project.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 28/03/2012

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Building Naming Scheme in NDN over V2V Communication

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Eiko Yoneki, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This project explores an emerging new Internet architecture called "Named Data Networking" (NDN) originated by the project Content Centric Networking (CCN). In this project, you will explore naming schemes in NDN. The semantics of names is opaque to the network but depends on the application. The structure of names (e.g. hierarchically structured with an arbitrary number of components), discovery, and namespace navigation should be investigated and the vehicle-to-vehicle communication environment is targeted. You can exploit location information (e.g. latitude and longitude by GPS or any geographical information that can be obtained from the map) to navigate the data flow depending on the consumers' interests. The meaning of names can be determined by local and global distribution requirements, and the content producer and consumer application conventions, as embodied in individual router's routing tables and application-level transport libraries.

You will use CCNx open source environment.

• This role is suitable for students with experience of networking programming.

• This role could develop into a 4th year project.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 28/03/2012

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Dead Reckoning with a Smartphone

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Robert Harle, Computer Laboratory

Full information on Digital Technology Group run UROPs are available here

Project Description:

The DTG has been developing systems that can track smartphone users around the building. Part of the solution includes the use of dead reckoning techniques based solely on smartphone sensors. Many techniques have been proposed to do this, but few have been tested with any rigour. We are looking for a capable student to:

Collect traces from a wide variety of people walking using smartphone sensors (accelerometers, gyros, magnetometers, barometer).

Implement the pedometer algorithms in a language of their choice.

Provide an analysis of the algorithms using their collected data.

You can see a list of the previous projects run on this scheme here and many of them are available to try on the Android Marketplace.

• This project will suit any student interested in data analysis. The results would be of interest to the research community and likely to form the basis of an academic paper.

• Confidence in at least one programming language (Java is fine) and basic data analysis are required. No prior experience with smartphone programming is required.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor, stating which project you are applying for and attach a copy of your CV.

• Insertion Date: 23/03/2012

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Application of inkjet techniques to crop spraying

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Ian Hutchings, Institute for Manufacturing, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

A company sponsored project will explore the application of inkjet drop generation and control techniques to crop spraying.

Established spraying techniques, although simple, have a number of disadvantages including:

· Large drop size distribution – leading to wind drift (small drops) and non-capture (large drops).

· Requires significant dilution therefore most of the material transported is water –resulting in large, heavy sprayers and water wastage.

During this project the student will:

· Assemble test equipment with a variable drop generation frequency, liquid pressure and with an adaptable nozzle.

· Using a variety of samples provided by the company to explore the effects of the formulations, particle size distribution and level of solids content at optimum and non-optimum operating conditions.

· Emulate air flows associated with spraying in the field and study the effect on the drops, their combination and distribution including the “drift” component.

For further information click here.

• Co-supervised by Dr Graham Martin, Department of Engineering.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring sponsor funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 20/03/2012

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Nano-composite materials

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Zoe Barber, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Research Group: Device Materials

Project Description:

Nano-composite materials are becoming an increasingly active area of research due to the wide range of properties they exhibit. By fine-tuning the exact structure of these materials, it is possible to tailor the behaviour to different applications: for example, data storage, biodevices, hard coatings, electronic and magnetic devices. Typically, at the core of these nano-composites is a metal nano-cluster, and it is these particles which provide the majority of the active behaviour of the composite. Nano-particles are stabilized by being embedded in a carbon matrix, and the wide range of possible carbon allotropes allows for additional control over properties.

This project will involve the growth and characterization of such metal-carbon films. The growth mechanism would be based on magnetron sputter deposition, which allows for the control and variation of a wide range of structural variables. Structural characterization could involve any of a range of techniques: for example, X-ray diffraction, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, or electron microscopy. Such characterization would be combined with property measurements (electrical, magnetic, or mechanical) in order to link structure and properties, and hence be able to control film properties using the growth parameters. There are many aspects to be studied, and one plan would be to assess a range of different metals, in order to observe their different characteristics, and perhaps discover a novel feature or property.

For further information click here.

• Number of placements available: 1

• Length of placement(s): 8-10 weeks

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 20/03/2012

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Deformation of complex crystals

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Bill Clegg, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Research Group: Ceramics & Inorganic materials

Project Description:

There are a large number of Complex Metallic Alloys with unit cells, some of which contain thousands of atoms. Despite the very large Burgers vectors that would be expected in such materials, they will deform to high strains above a ductile-brittle transition temperature, TBDTT, that varies from 0.4-0.8 of the melting point. Above this temperature, deformation takes place by partial dislocations moving by both glide and climb. The occurrence of climb is perhaps hardly surprising given the temperature involved. However, cracking has prevented any studies being carried out at temperatures below the ductile-brittle transition temperature, TBDTT, and there is no understanding of how such materials might behave at temperatures sufficiently low that climb could not occur, and whether deformation is even possible at low temperatures. The aim of the project is to study how such materials deform at temperatures sufficiently low that climb cannot occur, and to compare this behaviour with that observed above the ductile-brittle transition temperature.

The work will focus initially on the orthorhombic Al13Co4, thought to deform by slip on {001} planes using single crystal compression testing and nanoindentation. Measurements of the yield stress will then be made over a range of temperatures, both below and above TBDTT, allowing the rate-controlling step to be characterised in terms of the activation volume, and identify the potential mechanism of flow and how these might change at TBDTT. The slip patterns will also be compared with those at room temperature.

For further information click here.

• Number of placements available: 1

• Length of placement(s): 8-10 weeks

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 20/03/2012

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Use of Nanoindentation to Measure High Strain Rate Deformation Characteristics

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Bill Clyne, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Research Group: Composites & Coatings

Project Description:

A study will be undertaken of the conditions generated during impact mode operation of a pendulum-based nanoindenter housed in a vacuum chamber.

An FEM model has been developed to describe such loading. A “kicker” solenoid incorporated in the system allows single impact operation. The output data include dynamic displacement histories and residual indent dimensions. The system allows information to be inferred about the strain rate dependence of the material response, at strain rates up to approximately 104 s-1.

Experiments will be carried out on standard copper samples, which have already been well-characterised in terms of their yielding, work-hardening and creep characteristics.

For further information click here.

• Number of placements available: 1 or 2

• Period of placement(s): late June - late August

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 20/03/2012

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The Deposition of Ingested Particles within a Gas Turbine Aeroengine

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Bill Clyne, Department of Materials Science and Metallurgy

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Research Group:Composites & Coatings

Project Description:

An experimental and modelling study will be undertaken concerning the adhesion of ceramic particulate onto the surfaces of rotating turbine blades within a small jet engine (located in the Department).

This is relevant to the possibility of turbine blade coatings being damaged by the absorption of ingested particles, such as volcanic ash. The presence of adhered particles will be detected using an optical fibre. The observed incidence of adhesion, as a function of particle size, melting temperature, exhaust temperature etc, will be correlated with predictions from commercial software for simulation of the transport phenomena involved.

For further information click here.

• Number of placements available: 1 or 2

• Period of placement(s): late June - late August

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 20/03/2012

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Design and Fabrication of an Integrated-Circuit for a Cryogenic Amplifier for Quantum Transport Measurements

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Geb Jones, Cavendish Laboratory

Project Description:

In recent developments for solid-state quantum-computation systems and other fundamental semiconductor transport measurements there is an increasing requirement for high-bandwidth, low-noise electronic instrumentation circuits which can operate inside dilution refrigerators at very low temperatures (i.e. below 1K). Specifically we need to develop a high-gain, differential preamplifier to operate close to the device under test. Si based devices are unable to do this and so lll-V materials such as GaAs are necessary.

The Semiconductor Physics Group at the Cavendish has facilities to grow GaAs wafers and to process them into complete integrated devices. The ideal student for this project would have a reasonable knowledge of analogue electronic circuit design and analysis and during the project the student will be taught device processing techniques such as optical lithography, etching, metal deposition etc. together with device characterizing techniques. The project is largely experimental and would suit an electronics engineering student or physicist.

• Co-Supervisor: Dr Thierry Ferrus, Hitachi Laboratory will act as second supervisor.
• Suitable for students with expertise in analogue electronic circuit design and an interest in learning about semiconductor device fabrication.
• There is a possibility for this project to continue/develop into a 4th year project.

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 18th May 2012

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Mechanical behaviour of igneous rock through the glass transition

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof. Simon Redfern, Department of Earth Sciences

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Recent results from experiments in this lab indicate that episodic seismicity associated with basaltic dyke intrusion may be associated with variations in the mechanical behaviour of basalt as it cools from a melt. Initially we see an increase in strength as melt solidifies to glass, followed by a weakening as the glass undergoes microfracture and eventual failure. This correlates closely with the observed failure of plugged intrusions in the mid crust of Iceland (White et al, 2012: CLICK HERE for more information ).
 

This project will extend the initial study to investigate the role of strain rate and cooling rate on the mechanical response of basalt to see whether the same patterns of strengthening and weakening on cooling are reproduced, and to determine their controls. The student will use dynamic mechanical testing using forced torsion pendulum measurements of samples up to their melting point. Data will be analysed within models for anelastic, plastic and brittle behaviour, and interpreted within the context of geophysical observations in Iceland.

The successful applicant will have at least a 2.1, and should be in the second or third year of their four year degree with a background in Materials, Physics or Earth Sciences and an interest in mineralogy, geophysics or materials science. They should be keen to carry out an experimental project and to develop data analysis methods for the interpretation of mechanical spectroscopy, with literature work to set their results in a wider context.

• Prof Bob White (Bullard Laboratories) will act as second supervisor.
• This UROP has the potential to continue into a 4th year project at some stage in the future.

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 15th May 2012

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Safe Design of Medical Equipment: a Human Factors Engineering Approach

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Tim Horberry - Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

This project will work with Addenbrooke’s hospital to examine safety issues with a particular medical device. The project will incorporate aspects of design, safety/risk management and human factors engineering. Working closely with the supervisors, a safety lead at Addenbrooke’s, anaesthetists and possibly medical device manufacturers, it will build on the previous work undertaken in Design for Patient Safety and Safe Design of equipment WEB SITE ~ CLICK HERE

The student will be initially familiarized with the domain and the precise medial device. Following that, a targeted review of literature will be undertaken. Thereafter, working closely with the supervisors, a ‘safe design’ process will be applied to the medical device; this may include an end-user workshop to help understanding the tasks required to use the device, analyzing the task steps, identifying the risks and helping to develop solutions.

Person Description

• Requires a self-motivated student with good analytical skills, combined with an ability to interact professionally with people at all levels.
• This project is suitable for Year 2 or Year 3 (1B and 2A) Engineering or Psychology students with an interest in either safety, medicine, design or applied psychology.

Other Information:

• This UROP will also offer a potential opportunity to continue into a 4th year project.


• The project is likely to begin in mid-June for a period of 8-10 weeks.

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 10th May 2012

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Large Area Passive RFID Systems

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof Richard Penty Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Radio frequency identification (RFID) tags are widely used to track components in factories, shipping containers, high-value retail goods, and many other items. Passive RFID systems have no batteries in the tags, making them very cheap to produce ($0.05). The focus of the Cambridge research team has been not only to overcome the limited range for the reliable detection of passive tags, so that antennas could be spaced 20 meters apart - comparable with conventional Wi-Fi spacings - but also to provide accurate real-time location data.

The current RFID architecture, however, requires numerous fixed antennas to be distributed through co-axial or fibre-optic cables, which makes installations both complex and very expensive. The challenge here is to investigate a low-cost installation that will be effective over a large area. There is therefore a strong desire to implement such a system using standard cat-5 Ethernet cable. The challenge could be approached in the analogue domain. This UROP will analyse the relative merits of this approach through modelling, and if time permits, build the chosen solution into a lab demonstrator.

Person Description

A strong back ground in RF and practical electronics, or embedded C is desirable. Knowledge of real-time programming in Visual C++ or wireless communications could be advantageous.

1. This UROP will also offer an opportunity to continue into a 4th year project.


2. For more information about Prof Penty CLICK HERE

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 10th May 2012

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Engineered Structural Bamboo.

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Michael Ramage, Department of Architecture

Project Description:

The UROP student would join a project that is developing green construction materials and building codes for bamboo. China, India and Brazil have rapidly expanding economies with increasing demand for building materials. The production of conventional construction materials such as steel and concrete is energy intensive and unsustainable: concrete alone accounts for 5% of global CO2 emissions. Bamboo is a fast growing, renewable building material widely cultivated in these countries but not utilized to its full potential in modern construction. Its mechanical properties are similar to wood but it produces up to six times as much mass per hectare as conventional timber plantations.

We are looking at the use of bamboo in commercial architecture for greater sustainability in large-scale urban buildings. The student will join a group of chemists, engineers and architects looking broadly at the use of bamboo and wood in contemporary design. The student's contribution will be to study the medium-scale contemporary commercial buildings and other structures that are primarily built of bamboo, and provide a review of literature from the primary bamboo producing countries of India, China, Brazil, Columbia and Ecuador.

The UROP is anticipated to be 4 weeks in duration during July or September.

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 8 June 2012

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Aerodynamics of road haulage vehicles

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Holger Babinsky, Professor of Aerodynamics, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Current 3rd year Engineering students only.

Aerodynamic drag is a significant contributor to fuel burn and C02 production of road haulage vehicles travelling at motorway speeds.

In this project we want to explore how changes to the overall shape of a typical tractor/trailer combination can reduce aerodynamic drag. The project will involve a detailed literature survey as well as wind tunnel tests in the Department’s low speed Markham tunnel.

Particular focus will be placed on modifications to the rear of the trailer, e.g. by fairing in the final cross-section. Other potential areas for improvement can be found on the underside or in the tractor/trailer link region. Following on from wind tunnel tests, it is possible that full-scale road tests can be conducted to test promising concepts.

• Module 3A1 is essential to this project.

• This UROP is linked to a 4th year project. The successful applicant will be expected to also apply for this 4th year project.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 13/03/2012

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Transparent Structures - Designing Glass Connections

Contact:Lead Supervisor: James Watson, Glass & façade technology research group, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Recently adhesives have emerged as an alternative to bolted connections for point-fixings in glass façades, with the bulk of the research focusing on their physical characteristics. Recent tests have found that the strength of the joint can be substantially increased by changing the bond dimensions.

This project forms part of a wider collaboration between the University of Cambridge and Industry. It will involve experimental work supported by numerical analysis to examine geometric effects on bond strength.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 13/03/2012

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A Localized Prediction System Using Neighbourhood Characterizations of Urban Environments in Location-Based Social Networks

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Cecilia Mascolo, Computer Laboratory

Project Description:

In typical location-based prediction or recommendation systems today, users are presented with specific places, such as a certain restaurant or store that they may visit in the future, based on the types and location of places they have visited in the past. However, from previous research, we know that there are areas within cities that are comprised of places that have homogeneous qualities. These are what are generally called neighbourhoods.

Qualities that may characterize a neighbourhood include the type of people that frequent that neighbourhood, the types of places that are within that neighbourhood, and the time of day the neighbourhood is busiest, as well as others. The reasons these homogenous areas emerge, giving a flavour and distinctive quality to each neighbourhood, is because some types of places tend to locate themselves closely to each other, forming a cluster, such as a shopping district or restaurants in Chinatown. The types of people, such as local/tourist or a specific occupation that then visit these areas also are similar.

The dataset that allows us to gather this information is Foursquare data that has been pushed to public Twitter accounts. The areas of the data we focus on are the Foursquare place categories that each place is assigned, the profiles and check-in history of the users, and the temporal check-in frequencies of each place. Because a reasonably large number of check-ins are necessary to find clusters, we restrict our system to heavily-populated urban environments such as New York and London.

Based on this information we have about neighbourhoods, it would be possible, knowing the characteristics of a user and his movement history, to predict or recommend new neighbourhoods for him to visit. Thus, our goal would be to, instead of suggesting specific places for a user to visit, suggest general areas for the user to explore locally on his own.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 08/03/2012

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Microstructure of bulk superconductors

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Noel Rutter, Director of Undergraduate Teaching, Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

One of the most promising potential applications of high temperature superconductors is in bearings for high-speed energy-storage flywheels. To achieve high energy density in a manageable mass these devices use composite rotors that must spin at very high speeds. To permit this with minimal energy loss from friction requires a magnetically-levitated bearing. The strongest "permanent" magnets are those that use solid blocks of high temperature superconductors cooled to 77 K. In the Department of Engineering, bulk samples are produced using a peritectic reaction that results in a nominally single grain structure. As in the case of single crystal turbine blades the microstructure is considerably more complex than this and varies both radially and down the cylindrical samples from the "seed" crystal used to initiate growth.

Optimisation of the electromagnetic properties of these samples requires an understanding of how the microstructure of the superconducting material varies in each sample and depends on processing conditions. The main focus of this summer undergraduate student project is to characterise the compositional homogeneity and crystallographic texture of such samples in the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy. The sections will also be electromagnetically characterised in a squid magnetometer system to allow correlation of the microstructural data and electromagnetic performance. This should then allow us to optimise our growth technique for improved materials performance.

• The project student would be expected to have a suitable background in Materials Science or Materials Engineering.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 03/05/2012

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Measurement of electrical charging effects in drop-on-demand ink-jet printing

Contact: Dr Steve Hoath, Department of Engineering, Institute for Manufacturing, Inkjet Research Centre

Project Description:

Commercial ink-jets ejecting drops of fluid from nozzles of ~ 50 µm diameter at speeds of ~ 6 m/s are studied to help us understand and improve printing. Ink-jet printing of aqueous and solvent based inks in industrial applications is reported to cause electrical charging effects sufficient to affect image quality. Our bench top feasibility experiments do appear to corroborate charging effects. The present equipment utilises a single nozzle inkjet print head with a piezoelectric drive, with automated high resolution imaging of the fluid jetting from a nozzle into a receiver attached to a sensitive commercial electrometer. A Faraday cage is used to isolate the charge receiver. New experiments need to discriminate between various sources for the effects.

The project involves using, designing, constructing and/or modifying the existing equipment and testing different model fluids to determine the magnitude and origin of charging effects. This project may also provide an opportunity to publish the research findings in agreement with the sponsors. The applicant will work under guidance from lead and co-lead researchers.

• The successful applicant will probably be studying engineering or physics and have interest in electrical measurements. They will have good practical skills and be expected to work in a laboratory. Results will need to be interpreted and written up as a publishable report.

• The work will be based at the Inkjet Research Centre in the CUED Institute for Manufacturing (West Cambridge site) and will take 10 weeks

• Lead by Prof Ian Hutchings and co-lead with Dr Steve Hoath and Dr Wen-Kai Hsiao, all of the Inkjet Research Centre

• Insertion Date: 1/05/2012

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Building a 64 node DE4-board system with massive interconnect

Contact:Lead Supervisor: : Dr Simon Moore, Computer Laboratory

Project Description:

We are building a 64 node DE4-board system with massive interconnect (72Gb/s from any one board) and lots of memory (256GB).

We also have a MIPS-64 style processor (CHERI) designed by Bluespec SystemVerilog with capability security extensions as part of substantial (millions of pounds) worth of funding from DARPA (who originally funded the creation of the Internet, etc.) with a aim of building massively parallel and yet highly secure "cloud" servers.

A range of possible projects are available and all involve a combination of hardware & software:

• Graphics support for this machine

• Techniques to collect statistics and visualise the performance of the machine

• Parallel debug mechanisms

• Refinements to the CHERI processor itself

• Refinements to the interconnect and memory subsystem

The internships will be ideal for those who might be interested in undertaking research in computer systems after they have completed the Tripos. These internships are particularly aimed at current Part 1b students.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 08/03/2012

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Raspberry Pi Collaborative Programming Project

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Robert Mullins, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

The Raspberry Pi (RP) is a low-cost single-board computer that aims to provide an ideal environment for experimenting with programming and electronics.

This work aims to develop an environment and a number of programming challenges for children to solve collectively through programming/scripting. This collaborative programming environment will be designed to run on a network (bramble!) of Raspberry Pi computers.

• This role is suitable for students with experience of programming in Python.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

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Raspberry Pi Hardware Projects

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Robert Mullins, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

The Raspberry Pi (RP) is a low-cost single-board computer that aims to provide an ideal environment for experimenting with programming and electronics.

This work aims to develop a number of projects that exploit the RP and its general-purpose I/O (GPIO) capabilities. For example, the construction of a simple robot, two-way data radio, interface to camera/LCD display, or temperature data logger.

• Suitable for students with a solid background in electronics and low-level programming in C.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

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In door sensor network deployment for human behaviour monitoring

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Cecilia Mascolo, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Sensor rich office environments offer opportunities for capturing and analysing social behaviour in the work place. Sensors embedded in the environment can detect social activities such as meetings, coffee breaks, informal chats, etc.

A short-term user study performed in the Computer Laboratory showed that there is a significant value in systems that allow workers to look at their social behaviour and activities at the work place and reflect by comparing with their colleagues.

Our aim is to continue on this work with a permanent installation of a social sensing infrastructure in the Computer Laboratory, to act as a test-bed social sensing applications and experimentations.

• This project is best suited to a student with experience in C/C++ development.

  Any experience with sensor network application development and deployment would be desirable.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

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Large scale activity capturing and detection through mobile phones

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Cecilia Mascolo, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

High level activity detection for large communities or businesses can be a valuable tool for planning and management. For everyday people, capturing accurate information about their activities can support the processes of city planning and maintenance.

In the areas of construction and manufacturing, accurate activity detection of the workforce can feed into the workflow planning and job scheduling process. In this work we are planning to develop a mobile phone application that will allow the selective capturing of data traces using mobile phone sensors (accelerometer, microphone, location) in order to infer the activity of the user.

• This project is best suited to a student with a strong background in mobile phone development and in particular with experience in iPhone development and Objective C.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

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Signposts - the virtual personal internet

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Jon Crowcroft, Professor of Communications Systems, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Users with multiple networked devices are having a hard time linking them up when said devices reside at more than one location. Simple example is trying to synch your android phone while on the bus to the laptop in your office and the Mac Mini at home. NATs and Firewalls and other obstacles to symmetric communication abound, and obstruct. Point solutions (Dropbox, iCloud) do not deal with many cases (different OS) and only work if you pay (with money or eyeball time on adverts). In any case, they are not acceptable to privacy conscious users.

Instead, we are building a system called signposts. This is the smallest conceivable virtual machine that sits in the public internet, and looks after your personal namespace of devices. Registration and lookup of names is "effectful", in other words, has side effects. The side effect is to use a set of possible tactics to rendezvous between the devices (various techniques for NAT traversal, for example) including possible multiple simultaneous path use, and also allowing for constraints, such as battery life, and price of use of connections. The system sits on top of DNSSEC, but more interestingly, as a piece of Computer Science, makes use of the new Cloud OS software being developed in CL, called Mirage (see http://www.openmirage.org/ and https://github.com/avsm/signpostd

This project is to help with the documentation and testing "in the wild" of signposts. We expect to uncover a lot of problems with different oddities (see http://conferences.sigcomm.org/imc/2011/docs/p181.pdf for examples) that appear, and we need to have good stories to account for what we are doing to the public and to security people. OCaml programming is pretty essential, as well as at least basic understanding of development tools (including git etc)

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

Lend us your ears: Taking Stock of Rolling Stock and Rail Track Quality by crowdsourcing data

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Professor Jon Crowcroft, Professor of Communications Systems, Computer Laboratory

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This project is to develop, and deploy a simple app for android fones that can be handed out to people who commute (e.g. cambridge<->london) on a rail route, and that monitors accelerometers and samples audio on phones, and logs the results, and at end of journeys, collaboratively uploads the data, with location, to a server for later analysis.

The idea is that amongst a set of devices on a train, we might be able to diagnose problems with the train and track, that represent wear and tear, earlier than otherwise, increasing safety and decreasing costs of maintenance (a win-win).

Such a system should minimise impact on users phone battery life, at the same time as preserving privacy (by filtering out personal identifiying information, and any voice captured through judicious sampling).

This would need/develop Java/Eclipse development skills. A number of previous projects have been done in the lab that could be used as starting points for the code. (see, for instance, fluphone and emotionsense). There are also colleagues in engineering who could help with the back end signal proecessing (which I imagine will be in MATLAB).

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

Cistercian architecture and medieval society

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Maximlian Gwiazda, Department of Architecture

Project Description:

The researcher will assist the supervisor for illustrations for a book that explores the social roles of medieval architecture, specifically that of the Cistercian order in 12th and 13th century France.

The book will include over 100 figures.

The assistant will need to draw a number of architectural plans of churches and monastic precincts, urban maps, as well as a series of geographic maps of historical regions, based on material I have in great part collected.

In some instances their accuracy will need to be checked in relation to other available published sources. Equally the assistant will need to do research into appropriate drawing conventions.

The assistant will also help me in getting the permission to reproduce copyrighted figures. The maps and plans are a critical in communicating the research findings and the argument.

The student must have the relevant software and technical skills for this work.

• Part1B architecture students are most likely the only eligible applicants for this bursary. The work should be done in the space of three weeks at the beginning of the summer vacation shortly after exam period.

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• Insertion Date: 07/03/2012

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iGEM2012 competition in Synthetic Biology

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Jim Haseloff, Department of Plant Sciences

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This is an interdisciplinary research project involving faculty and students from across the Schools of Biological Sciences, Technology and Physical Sciences, and will form the University of Cambridge's entry in an international competition to design and construct a novel biological machine.

The iGEM competition has grown as a summer competition, with 5 teams in 2004, 13 teams in 2005 - the first year that the competition grew internationally, to 160 teams in 2011. Projects have ranged from banana and wintergreen smelling bacteria, to an arsenic biosensor, to Bactoblood, and buoyant bacteria. The Cambridge team won the Grand Prize in 2009 with a scheme for sensitive biosensors that produced an array of colour pigments. The Cambridge iGEM2011 team featured on a recent BBC Horizon programme about Synthetic Biology.

We are recruiting a team for the challenge of conceiving and designing a simple biological system using standard, interchangeable parts and operating it in living cells. Spend the summer weeks designing the system and synthesising and testing the parts, and attend an end-of-competition jamboree in Amsterdam, and a Grand Final at MIT in Boston with other international teams.

This year, the competition is running with teams from over 160 universities worldwide including Cambridge. In the past, teams have engineered systems with functions that ranged from biological sensors, artificial navigation, multicellular patterning to implementation of a bacterial photographic film.

The project will run through the summer. The project will be based in a well-equipped laboratory at the Department of Plant Sciences, with access to a budget, and advanced research equipment. This is an ideal opportunity for students to get direct experience with biological systems and tools for DNA-based engineering. The project runs for 10 weeks, beginning June 25th 2012.

The project will be co-supervised by a number of contacts including Alexandre Kabla in the Department of Engineering

More information about this year's and previous competitions can be found at:
Main page for the iGEM competition.
http://www.synbio.org.uk Collected information about Synthetic Biology - wetware, hardware and software tools
http://www.synbio.org.uk A list of web sites and wikis for previous Cambridge iGEM teams.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/haseloff/collections Collected photographs from earlier competitions.

• This project is best suited to either: a) biology students to learn about practical engineering approaches to the design and modelling of non-linear system b) engineering students to gain hands-on experience with molecular biology techniques and biological systems at the frontier of this exciting research area.

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 24/02/2012

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Improving the Control Capabilities of a Lego Model of a Production Line

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Prof John Clarkson, Professor of Engineering Design, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

This project will involve improving the capabilities of an existing Lego model of a production line by incorporating additional control functions. This Lego model is being used to explore new and exciting ways to teach systems engineering to both graduate and undergraduate students. The production line is based around the interaction of 10 autonomous modules, each of which has been constructed from Lego Mindstorms technology and is controlled through MATLAB.

There is room for 2-3 students on this project. Each student will be able to choose to investigate one or more of the following:

• Intelligent fault detection and response;

• Improved cooperation between modules through increased communication;

• Speed control of the mainline to enable energy saving.

• Mainline buffering of pallets to improve productivity and/or enable particular orders to be intelligently fast-tracked through the system;




• This project is best suited to engineering students with an interest in mechanical and/or control engineering. Prior experience with Lego Mindstorms and/or MATLAB is an advantage, but is not essential.

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 24/02/2012

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Energy monitoring and measurement of plug loads

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Ian Slack, Safety Officer, Department of Engineering

Project Description:

The University has an ambitious 2010-2020 Carbon Management Plan aimed at substantially reducing the carbon footprint of its activities. As part of this, affordable cost effective energy reduction projects will be trialled which may then be transferred to other parts of the University estate. The Department of Engineering has been chosen to be the lead pilot project for the University.    

In the early summer the Department will be installing fixed electrical power monitors in strategic positions throughout the Main Site (Trumpington Street). The project will be using this information to identify areas, equipment, plant and processes of high energy use and to identify areas where there is significant energy use ‘out of hours’.

Suspected high energy use can be confirmed by the use of portable and plug-in monitors.

The information gained will be fed back to end-users to help change behaviour (where appropriate), to identify and label high energy use equipment, to inform purchasing decisions, to identify where equipment can be consolidated (e.g. printers) and to make available comparative data for equipment that is likely to be replaced in the near future (e.g. older cooling units).

• Applicants are invited for two positions.
• An interest in Environmental issues would be an advantage.
• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 25th May 2012

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Speech Recognition Using Bottleneck Features and Deep Neural Networks

Contact:Lead Supervisor: : Prof. Phil Woodland , Department of Engineering

Project Description:

Outline: Recently there has been renewed interest in the use of Neural Networks of various forms, such as Multi-Layer Perceptrons (MLPs). These are normally trained to directly produce the posterior probability that a particular frame of input audio, with associated acoustic context, corresponds to a particular phone (or portion of a context-dependent phone). The probabilities produced by the MLP are then used in place of the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) likelihoods in a hidden Markov Model (HMM) structure.     

While these HMM-MLP hybrid models can be successful another approach is to use the MLP purely as a method to produce acoustic feature vectors for a    conventional HMM with GMM based probability density functions. This can be done with an intermediate hidden layer in the MLP with only a small number of nodes (a "bottleneck" layer) which is between the other hidden layers and the output layer of (possibly context-dependent) phones. The outputs from the bottleneck for each frame    are included in the HMM acoustic feature vector [1] (possibly in combination with other conventional features representing the short-term spectrum of the frame). This has some    advantages as the usual training and adaptation techniques developed for HMM-GMMs can be applied.  

 MLPs with many hidden layers are difficult to train, and recently there has been interest in Deep Neural Networks (DNNs, also known as Deep Belief Networks or DBNs [2]) which are trained to have several hidden layers with each hidden layer trained in stages. The initialisation of these layers also uses a method known as a Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM).    There is evidence that the use of these DNNs can provide improved MLPs for use either in direct probability estimation for speech recognition [3] or in bottleneck features [4].  

  The aim of these project(s) is to investigate the use of DNNs (with or without RBM-based initialisation) to provide bottleneck features on a speech recognition task, and compare the performance to both a conventional HMM (using advanced acoustic modelling methods) and also to a bottleneck from an MLP using a single large hidden layer.    

The project will investigate the use of DNNs for generating bottleneck features and investigate the training of these models. A number of different speech recognition tasks will be used (in English and Chinese) and for each of these a speech recogniser will be trained and evaluated using the HTK toolkit.  The ICSI quicknet software  http://www.icsi.berkeley.edu/Speech/qn.html is available for DNN training, although it has some limitations and extensions to the ICSI software and other software changes will be investigated.    

The training of the DNNs on large data sets is computationally very intensive. Hence iff time allows (and this could be a separate project for a suitable applicant) the training of such models (using approximate gradient-descent based methods) using general purpose graphics processors (GPGPUs) will be investigated.    

Up to two project positions are available for up to 12 weeks.

Refs: 

1. J. Park, F. Diehl, M.J.F. Gales, M. Tomalin, P.C. Woodland (2011). The efficient incorporation of MLP features into automatic speech recognition systems.     Computer Speech and Language Vol 25, pp  519–534.
2. A. Mohamed, G.E. Dahl, G. Hinton (2011) Acoustic Modeling using Deep Belief Networks. Manuscript Submitted to IEEE Trans Audio, Speech and Language       Processing
3. F. Seide, G. Li, D. Yu (2011) Conversational Speech Transcription Using Context-Dependent Deep Neural Networks. Proc. Interspeech'2011, Florence.
4. D. Yu and Michael L. Seltzer (2011) Improved Bottleneck Features Using Pretrained Deep Neural Networks. Proc. Interspeech'2011, Florence.

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 21st May 2012

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3D Printing of Structural Scale Models

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Matthew DeJong, Lecturer in Structural Engineering, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Structural scale modelling is important for many fields of engineering research. Accurate scale modelling can be challenging, but 3D printing provides a new alternative to create improved scale models relatively quickly. However, the strength and the stiffness of the scale models is critical for effective experimental investigation. The aim of this research is to investigate 3D printing in plaster to create models of concrete and masonry structures. The research will involve determination of the material properties of the printed material through physical testing, including the investigation of alternate printing specifications to alter the strength and stiffness. Once material properties have been characterized, dimensional analysis will be used to create specific scale models of buildings with desired characteristics.

• Suitable for Year 2 & Year 3 students, preferably specialising in Mechanical or Civil engineering. However, all Engineering students will have the required background to conduct the research.

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 14/02/2012

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Aeroacoustic whistles

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Anurag Agarwal, Lecturer in Aeroacoustics, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Most whistles operate due to a feedback mechanism between flow instability and acoustics. The interaction between aerodynamics and acoustics is termed as aeroacoustics. Whistles (e.g. steam kettle whistle, sport whistles, samba whistles, police whistles etc) are empirically derived and the theory behind the whistling mechanism is not well understood. This project is mainly experimental and involves manufacturing a model whistle (in Perspex to facilitate flow visualisation. the type of whistle selected would depend on the interest of the student) and making aerodynamic and acoustic measurements that would lead to a simple physics-based model. A physical understanding of such flows would help understand other whistling mechanisms that are of practical importance (e.g. whistling in pipes with cavities and junctions, etc).

• Suitable for Year 3 EU students

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 14/02/2012

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Development of User-Interface for Airport Emissions Tool

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Adam Boies, Energy Efficient Cities University Lecturer, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Industry pressure is leading to growing concern about emissions by airport operators. Airports Council International (ACI), the industry body for airport operators, maintains a carbon accreditation scheme which requires operators to report greenhouse gas emissions. The aim of this project is to adapt an existing MATLAB tool that estimates emissions of pollutants arising from activities at airports for use in air-quality studies to assess the environmental impacts of aviation. The software will be developed to best suit the needs and capabilities of airport operators, and provide a suitable user-interface. Potentially, we would be looking to create a web-based interface. The ideal applicant should have an interest in usability and working knowledge of MATLAB and Java.

• Suitable for Year 2 & Year 3 students, preferably with an interest in fluids, thermodynamics, heat transfer and chemistry.

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 14/02/2012

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Neutralization of Combustion and Atmospheric Aerosols using Novel Ionization Sources

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Adam Boies, Energy Efficient Cities University Lecturer, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

Combustion and atmospheric aerosols consist of particles <300 nanometers that typically possess a net charge. Combustion-generated particles are charged during the combustion process by the attachment of free radical species and thermal charging. Likewise, atmospheric aerosol particles are charged by ions produced by cosmic rays and by the emission of radiation from the terrestrial surface.

The objective of this project is to evaluate the performance of commercially available particle chargers. Chargers found in aerosol instruments generate a cloud of ions through which particles pass and acquire an equilibrium number of charges. Such a process is colloquially referred to as “neutralization”. Radioactive sources, x-rays, or corona discharge are used to produce the ions required for neutralization. Variations in these techniques may lead to different charging characteristics. Quantifying these characteristics will lead to a better understanding of the measurement of size and concentration of these particles that are ubiquitous in our atmosphere.

• This project is best suited for an engineering student who has an advanced knowledge of fluid mechanics, heat transfer, and thermodynamics principles and has an interest in working full time in a hands-on laboratory. Students are strongly encouraged to contact Dr Jacob Swanson for more information.

• Could potentially lead to a project in Year 4

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is subject to acquiring EPSRC funding.

• Insertion Date: 14/02/2012

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Developing computational resources to support Biology teaching in the Natural Sciences Tripos

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Nik Cunniffe Department of Plant sciences

Project Description:

This project will develop resources to integrate computing into Biology teaching across all three years of the Natural Sciences Tripos, using Matlab as the computational vehicle. In particular, the project involves the following.

1. Rewriting the weekly practical computing component of the large (~200 student) IA Natural Sciences course in Mathematical Biology to use Matlab (currently we use prewritten MathCAD worksheets), while extending that part of the course to leave our students with knowledge of programming.


2. Developing a suite of online self-study mathematical exercises for IA Mathematical Biology, using the Matlab publish facility.


3. Producing individual practicals/workshops in a number of key biology subjects throughout the Natural Sciences Tripos (e.g. Part IB Plant and Microbial Sciences, Part II Zoology, Part II Genetics), using custom written Matlab software to illustrate computational topics without exposing students to the technical details.

Person Description

This project needs two or three students who will work together, in close collaboration with lecturers in the School of Biological Sciences. The project would suit second or third year Physics, Mathematics or Engineering students, or any other students with a strong knowledge of both Matlab and mathematics. The project does not involve any formal research component. However, there is considerable flexibility in the approach that will be taken, and so the project would best suit creative individuals with an interest in teaching (at either secondary or university level). Note that any student opting for this project will be exposed to a wide overview of topics in Mathematical Biology, at a number of different levels of mathematical~biological~computational sophistication, and so the project may also suit any student interested in a PhD in this rapidly growing field.

For more information CLICK HERE

Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

Insertion Date: 07 May 2012

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Further development of the IA Integrated Electrical Project

Contact:Lead Supervisor: Dr Tim Flack, Department of Engineering

EPSRC criteria apply CLICK HERE for criteria

Project Description:

The IA Integrated Electrical Project (IEP) aims to teach experimental electrical engineering relating to most of the IA Linear Circuits course via the design, build and test of an AM radio receiver. The Electrical and Information Engineering divisions would like to build on the success of this project by expanding it to include digital circuits, specifically material on combinational and sequential logic.

  So far, a system has been developed which takes a digital input from the controller of a robotic arm, and transmits this digital information using the technique of Amplitude Shift Keying (ASK) with the AM transmitters used inthe current IEP. The AM radios built in the first part of the IEP receive and demodulate this information. The aim of the rest of the expanded IEP is to decode the received information into a form so that it controls the robotic arm, using the ideas in the digital ciurcuits lectures on combinational and sequential logic, as well as gaining experience with integrated circuits such as shift registers.

  Thus, the entire system would become a remote-controlled robotic arm using digital techniques to transmit the controller information.

  The aim of this UROP is to take the existing system and circuits, and refine them to the point where they can be converted into a series of experiments and design handouts such that the average IA student could go ahead and design, build and debug the entire system. The project assumes that a working AM radio has been developed, and that the system to transmit the information from the robotic arm controller is already in place. Thus, it is concerned only with the interface between the output of the AM radio and the robotic arm, which for the most part is digital.

  We would be interested in hearing from students who are highly motivated in the areas of electrical and information engineering. An excellent understanding of the IA courses on linear circuits and digital circuits is required. Experience of doing the IEP in its current form is also desirable.

• Please apply to Contact/Lead Supervisor.

• N.B. this project is EPSRC funded and application criteria apply.

• Insertion Date: 04/05/2012

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Last updated: 17th July 2012
Igor Wowk

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