[agents] PhD Studentship in Distributed Sensing, Control and Decision Making in Multi-Agent Autonomous Systems @ University of Southampton

[Alex Rogers]

PhD Studentship in Distributed Sensing, Control and Decision Making in
Multi-Agent Autonomous Systems

Agents, Interactions & Complexity Group
University of Southampton
Southampton, UK

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in the Agents, Interaction
and Complexity Group, in Electronics and Computer Science at the
University of Southampton. The School is the largest of its kind in the UK
and in the last Research Assessment Exercise (in 2008) Computer Science
was ranked joint second in the UK for the quality of its research, with 85
per cent of its research work being rated as either world leading or
internationally excellent.

The successful candidate will work on a major new collaborative
interdisciplinary project that is seeking to develop novel intelligent
autonomous control approaches for multi-agent systems within real world
industrial applications (e.g. coordinating multiple unmanned autonomous
vehicles and mobile sensors). In particular, the project will develop
approaches for decentralized decision-making in teams of autonomous
intelligent agents including complex behaviour such as coalition formation
for specific goals. The posts will be based in the Agents, Interaction and
Complexity (AIC) research group (www.aic.ecs.soton.ac.uk
<http://www.aic.ecs.soton.ac.uk/>). You will be working directly with
Prof. Nick Jennings and Dr. Alex Rogers, and will be joining an
internationally renowned team applying techniques from game theory,
mechanism design, and multi-agent systems to a range of complex real-world
problems. 

You should possess, or be completing, an undergraduate degree in a
relevant discipline (Computer Science, Engineering, or Mathematics), and
have an interest in developing your expertise in multi-agent systems,
decision theory, artificial intelligence, and/or decentralised
coordination and control. Furthermore, you should also have a strong
interest in the application of these techniques in challenging real-world
contexts involving autonomous vehicles.

The fully funded studentship will be for 3 years starting 1st October
2012. 

To be eligible for the stipend and fees, you must comply with EPSRC
criteria detailed here -
http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/students/pages/eligibility.aspx (i.e. you
must have settled status in the UK, and have been ordinarily resident in
the UK for the previous 3 years).

Informal enquiries may be made to Dr. Alex Rogers (acr at ecs.soton.ac.uk).

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Dr. Alex Rogers
Agents, Interaction and Complexity Group
Electronics & Computer Science
University of Southampton
Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK.
Web: http://users.ecs.soton.ac.uk/acr/
Email: acr at ecs.soton.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0) 23 8059 9008
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