The scholarship project
The overall time for a design optimization process is a critical factor in product development. Different strategies for organizing the process exist. The idea of simultaneous engineering/concurrent engineering is to optimize different parts of a product simultaneously and communicate at specified points of time intermediate results between different domains. This can be interpreted as an introduction of more constraints during the process. Generally it is known that the optimization of each domain may take longer but the overall design cycle might be shorter

The projects will use a digital model of a Honda car to investigate the simultaneous engineering of its aerodynamic design. There are two focus points in the project. The first one is “Learning with Adaptive Representations”, which will investigate adaptive representations and transfer learning for the simultaneous/concurrent engineering of the car shape. The second focus point is “Shape development under uncertainty”, will investigate optimisation and decision making under uncertainty and their applications to the simultaneous/concurrent engineering of the car shape.

This exciting and adventurous project will be co-supervised by researchers from CERCIA (The Centre of Excellence for Research in Computational Intelligence and Applications, www.cercia.ac.uk) at the University of Birmingham, UK, and Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH (www.honda-ri.de), Germany. The successful candidates will be provided with excellent research environments in both academic and industrial settings.

The Candidates
The successful applicants must have at least a 2.1 or above degree in computer science/engineering or a closely related field (or a Distinction at the MSc level). We do consider outstanding applicants from mathematics, physics and engineering as long as they have sufficient computer science background. Previous research experience is an advantage, but not necessary. The successful applicants must have outstanding analytical skills and excellent software development experiences. Ability to communicate clearly and effectively, both in writing and speaking, is essential. S/he must be excellent team players who can also work independently. The successful candidates will be required to spend part of their MRes time at Honda Research Institute Europe GmbH in Germany, when they do not have taught modules at Birmingham.

Duration: One year (subject to satisfactory progress).

Annual Payments: GBP18,950 in total per studentship, i.e., GBP14,000 tax-free living allowance and GBP4,950 for tuition fees in 2013/14 at the Home/EU student level.

Eligibility: Open to all European Union / United Kingdom applicants. However, exceptional candidates outside UK/EU may be considered.

Deadline: The review of applications will start on 1 June 2013, until is the two positions are filled.

Application: For more information, please apply through the program website

For technical enquiries only: Prof. Xin Yao (x.yao@cs.bham.ac.uk) or Dr. Shan He (s.he@cs.bham.ac.uk)