We are looking for a strong student for a dual PhD award in human-robot interaction, robotics and AI as a cooperation between the University of Hertfordshire (UK) and Western Sydney University (AU) with a focus on activity recognition.

The application deadline for this fully-funded opportunity is 31 August 2022. Apply here now!

Our previous work in the ACCOMPANY project and recent collaboration with the North Hertfordshire County Council, focuses on person and activity detection in ambient assisted living scenarios. The next natural progression in this work is to improve on the technological readiness of systems for deployment in supervised and unsupervised settings. This involves working on detection algorithms fidelity, as well as user interfaces for the triad of care, the person under care, their relatives andthe service provider. The goal here is to detect people and objects and what people do with objects. This then serves as a repository of activities that are automatically detected in support of independent living. The PhD involves both elements of robotics and artificial intelligence, thus to enable accurate detection of activities in a robot-mediated interaction scenario.

The PhDs will be conducted under supervision of the Robot House team Prof. Farshid Amirabdollahian and Dr Patrick Holthaus. A further inspiration and enrichment for this topic emerges from the dual award nature of this PhD. Candidates will have the opportunity to receive co-supervision from Prof Gu Fang at Western Sydney University in order to enrich aspects of activity monitoring from state of the art in monitoring in industrial environments. Candidates are required to spend the first and third year at University of Hertfordshire, and to spend the second year of their PhD research in Sydney, Australia.

Interested candidates are invited to contact Prof. Farshid Amirabdollahian. Further information, formal requirements, and the application procedure can be found at the websites of the University of Hertfordshire's doctocal college.