Design and Development of a Capsule Robot for Medical Applications

We are recruiting new Doctoral Researchers to our EPSRC funded Doctoral Training Partnership (DTP) PhD studentships starting 1 October 2023. Applications are invited for the project Design and Development of a Capsule Robot for Medical Applications

Successful applicants will receive an annual stipend (bursary) of approximately £19,668, including inner London weighting, plus payment of their full-time home tuition fees for a period of 42 months (3.5 years).

You should be eligible for home (UK) tuition fees there are a very limited number (no more than three) of studentships available to overseas applicants, including EU nationals, who meet the academic entry criteria including English Language proficiency.

You will join the internationally recognised researchers in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering

The Project

A capsule robot has potential applications in medical diagnosis (e.g. capsule endoscopy) and treatments. In 2000, Given Imaging introduced the capsule endoscope which has many advantages over the traditional endoscopy. However, it cannot control its motion and diagnostic accuracy is low. A self-propelling capsule endoscope could be a solution to this. 

This research will address the following question: Can we design and develop a wirelessly controlled and self-propelling capsule robot with a safe propulsion mechanism? 

Please contact Dr Hongying Meng at Hongying.meng@brunel.ac.uk for an informal discussion about the studentships.

Eligibility

Applicants will have or be expected to receive a first or upper-second class honours degree in an Engineering, Computer Science, Design, Mathematics, Physics or a similar discipline. A Postgraduate Masters degree is not required but may be an advantage.

Skills and Experience

The applicant will be required to demonstrate his/her strong programming skills and experience in robotics (experimental, modelling and/or analytical experience), and CAD software such as Solidworks or equivalent. The applicant should be highly motivated, able to work independently as well as in a team, collaborate with others and have good communication skills.

How to apply

There are two stages of the application:

1.Applicants must submit pre-application form via the following link https://brunel.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/epsrc-dtp-23-24-pre-application-form-brunel-university-lon-3

by 16.00 on Friday 26th May 2023.

2.If you are shortlisted for the interview, you will be asked to email the following documentation in a single PDF file to cedps-studentships@brunel.ac.uk within 24hrs.

Your up-to-date CV;
Your Undergraduate degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) essential;
Your Postgraduate Masters degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) if applicable;
Your valid English Language qualification of IELTS 6.5 overall (minimum 6.0 in each section) or equivalent, if applicable;
Contact details for TWO referees, one of which can be an academic member of staff in the College.

Applicants should therefore ensure that they have all of this information in case they are shortlisted.

Interviews will take place in June 2023.

Meet the Supervisor(s)

Hongying Meng - Professor Hongying Meng is with Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering at Brunel University of London. Before joining Brunel, he held research positions in several UK universities including University College London (UCL), University of York, University of Southampton, University of Lincoln, and University of Dundee. He received his Ph.D. degree in Communication and Electronic Systems from Xi’an Jiaotong University and was a lecturer in Electronic Engineering Department of Tsinghua University, Beijing in China. His research area includes biomedical engineering, computer vision, affective computing, artificial intelligence, neuromorphic computing and Internet of Things. His research is funded by EPSRC, EU Horizon 2020, Royal Academy of Engineering, Royal Society, etc. He has published more than 200 academic papers with more than 7000 citations (Google Scholar h-index 39). He has developed 2 different emotion recognition systems that won AVEC2011 and AVEC2013 international challenge competitions respectively. He is an IEEE Senior Member since 2017 and an associate editor for IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology (TCSVT) and IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems (TCDS). He is also an associate Editors-in-Chief for Digital Twins and Applications (IET). He was recognized as one of the AI 2000 Most Influential Scholars by Aminer in 2022 and was listed as a Top 2% Scientist of the World (Stanford/Elsevier, single-year data sets) in 2023 and 2024.

Related Research Group(s)

Digital Process and Simulation -

Robotics and Automation - We carry out world-class research in robotics and autonomous systems, exploiting and exploring opportunities to develop innovative solutions for industrial and societal applications.

Digital Manufacturing - Being at the forefront of solutions for building smart machines, we create an operational framework for the digital transformation to Industry 4.0.