School of Computing, Engineering, and Physical Sciences

Lanarkshire Campus

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Unmanned Aerial Systems

REQ000988

AC2: £36,914 to £44,045 per annum

Full-time: 35 hours per week, fixed term to 31^th May 2023

UWS is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join the H2020 project RAPID (Risk Aware Port Inspection Drones). RAPID, which has secured €5 million in funding from the European Commission, will develop innovative drone swarm technology for maintenance inspection of large transport infrastructures such as bridges, ships, and port equipment.  UWS is the lead partner and coordinator of the RAPID consortium that brings together nine university and industry research organisations from across Europe, including Thales, SINTEF, Fraunhofer, Port of Hamburg, XOcean, University of Dundee, University of Limerick, and Revolve Water.

The successful applicant will be a key member of the RAPID team and will be responsible for delivering scientific and technical innovations in the field of unmanned aerial systems. The research objectives focus on developing high-performance mission simulation and embedded drone software for intelligent context awareness and flight management in highly dynamic and safety-critical BVLOS situations.  The outputs will improve the safety assurance of drones and facilitate compliance with evolving EASA rules and regulations by extending scenario digital twins, flight software, intelligent sensor perception, and risk modelling of drone machine vision.  The purpose is to identify and mitigate situations where drone perception systems lose situational awareness, such as while surveying in close quarters to large and complex structures.

As Postdoctoral Research Fellow, you will join the research team at the Advanced Laboratory for Manufacturing and Autonomous Digital Applications (ALMADA) based at the Lanarkshire campus within the School of Computing, Engineering & Physical Sciences (CEPS), which has around 110 academic staff and over 2,300 undergraduate and postgraduate students. You will have the opportunity to generate an extensive body of work-leading publication outputs, engage in PhD mentoring, and contribute to exploiting and developing the impact of RAPID.

• This post is augmented by a Research Project Manager and 2 funded PhD studentships being advertised concurrently.

To be successful in applying for this position, you must have a Ph.D. in a relevant field (Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Applied Mathematics, or similar) and be able to demonstrate an excellent portfolio of world-leading research outputs and impact, with credible plans for research revenue generation.  Excellent technical skills are required, in particular, expertise in developing high-performance production-ready software for big data, gaming, or sensor-driven robotics platforms, and utilising state of the art cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, modelling and simulation, and parallel programming models.

The University of the West of Scotland is committed to supporting personal development and providing an inclusive working environment.  UWS has the Athena SWAN Bronze Award, is a Disability Confident employer, and welcomes applications from under-represented groups; as such we particularly encourage applications supporting our diversity agenda. The West of Scotland has stunning countryside and coastlines for outdoor and family life. We are close to Glasgow, Scotland’s largest city, with its rich heritage and vibrant cultural life.

Informal enquiries to Dr James Riordan, james.riordan@uws.ac.uk.

Further information, including details of how to apply is available at http://www.uws.ac.uk/about-uws/jobs.

The post is full time and fixed term until 31 May 2023.  The post is available from August 2020 with start date as soon as possible thereafter.

Closing date:   Tuesday 30^th June 2020,

Interview date: Wednesday 15^th July 2020 (via Microsoft Teams)

UWS is committed to equality and diversity and welcomes applications from under-represented groups.

UWS is a "Disability Confident" employer.

University of the West of Scotland is a registered Scottish charity, no. SC002520.