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The University of Southampton
EngineeringPostgraduate study

SES-76-181 PhD Studentship: Advanced Nonlinear Systems Identification and Control

PhD Studentship: Advanced Nonlinear Systems Identification and Control with Applications to Electromechanical Systems, Power Systems and Biochemical Processes

This PhD studentship is expected to fund practically motivated research that combines control engineering, optimization and signal processing, with applications to manufacturing processes, energy generation/power systems as well as biochemical processes.

Nonlinearity always exists in the dynamics of almost every system. While linear approximation is often adequate to treat the system avoiding the nonlinear behaviours, increasing demand for precision in systems modelling and control for various applications makes the inclusion of the nonlinear dynamics inevitable. This has also increased the importance of nonlinear identification and control.

While with the advancement in digital technology, computing hardware infrastructure is nowadays available to handle complex computation which are often involved in solving nonlinear problems, the software, algorithms and techniques to solve nonlinear identification and control design are still limited. There are still many open and unsolved problems in this direction, which motivate new research challenges. 

Within this PhD studentship, the following research topics are offered:

1.  Nonlinear continuous and sampled-data adaptive control for electromechanical systems applications.

2. Numerical methods for port-controlled Hamiltonian systems and application to sampled-data control design for electro-mechanical systems.

3. Investigation and development of techniques for state dependent disturbance rejection, particularly for rotating machines.

4. Nonlinear systems identification and discrete to continuous system transformation (with applications to power network monitoring and biochemical processes).

This position is available to EU/UK applicants only, unless additional funding/scholarships are obtained by non EU/UK applicants to cover the overseas fees difference (£12,388 for 2011/12).

If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Dr Dina Shona Laila, Electro-mechanical Engineering research group, Email: d.laila@soton.ac.uk .

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