About the project
This PhD develops swarm algorithms for real-time wildfire monitoring. The project focuses on collective perception, fusing distributed observations under uncertainty, and predictive modeling of fire spread using generative and machine learning approaches. The goal is a scalable, autonomous system providing actionable intelligence for rapid wildfire response.
Wildfires destroy over 12 million hectares of forest annually, nearly half the size of the UK, causing severe ecological and economic damage. Current monitoring methods lack the spatial and temporal resolution required for early detection and rapid situational awareness.
This PhD project focuses on developing advanced algorithms for collective perception and prediction in a distributed swarm to enable real-time wildfire monitoring and forecasting. You will explore how a distributed network of robots that can autonomously sense, communicate, and reason about wildfire dynamics to produce actionable information.
The project will specifically focus on fusion of distributed observations and interaction with a robot swarm. The goal is to enable a swarm to jointly detect, localise, and map fire fronts under uncertainty and partial observability.
Key algorithmic approaches include:
- probabilistic state estimation: implement distributed filtering methods for fusing noisy observations from multiple cameras
- collective perception algorithms: design decentralized swarm algorithms that allow the robots to share local detections and collectively estimate fire boundaries in real-time
- multi-agent coordination: apply consensus algorithms and belief propagation to ensure the swarm maintains a coherent, up-to-date situational map despite intermittent communication;
- adaptive sensing strategies: use reinforcement learning or adaptive control to allocate the robot attention to areas of high uncertainty or predicted fire growth.
The School of Electronics & Computer Science is committed to promoting equality, diversity inclusivity as demonstrated by our Athena SWAN award. We welcome all applicants regardless of their gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation or age, and will give full consideration to applicants seeking flexible working patterns and those who have taken a career break. The University has a generous maternity policy, onsite childcare facilities, and offers a range of benefits to help ensure employees’ well-being and work-life balance. The University of Southampton is committed to sustainability and has been awarded the Platinum EcoAward.
