Advances in mechanics, electronics, computer vision, and artificial intelligence have recently enabled the development of exciting new robotic systems, varying from driverless vehicles to home assistants and industrial robots. Technology for assurance of safety of such applications, however, is lagging behind.
Modern Software Engineering does not rely solely on testing for analysis and verification of models and programs. Mathematics is used to write precise and unambiguous models and to define essential properties of the software. Tools are used to check statically that the programs are correct implementations of the models and satisfy the identified properties. PhD students working with me have, for example, developed:
The results range from foundational advancements to applied techniques and tools.
The robotics community has recently recognised the need to apply modern Software Engineering practice in the development of their modern and exciting application. Although many factors are involved in designing and verifying a robotic system, software development poses a key challenge. Full verification is beyond the state of the art due to the complexity of models and properties for decision-making systems. Our challenge is to enable and promote development approaches, where practitioners deal with models using accessible domain-specific languages, validation and verification is via modern simulation, testing, and proof techniques. Any problems are solved revisiting the models, not tinkering with low-level code.
Being in a world-leading position in our field, we can help you select a topic for your PhD project, so that you can engage in meaningful research from the first year of the programme. Some examples are provided below, but I am happy to consider other projects in the area of static analysis and verification of concurrent, real-time, and object-oriented programs for robotics.
Typically, my students take between three and three-and-a-half years to conclude. Many of my students start publishing novel and significant results from as early as the second year of studies.
| You will work in a world-class team of researchers in the field of robotics. In 2014, the Department of Computer Science was ranked 7th (jointly with Oxford) among 89 departments in the country for the quality of our research. Our research group has an international reputation on safety and formal methods. Our work has had extensive industrial support, and academic credit is confirmed by the high number of citations of earlier papers. |
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| The Department of Computer Science is located in the new campus of the University of York, in a new purpose-built building. It is the newest Computer Science facilities in the United Kingdom. York is one of the most historic, picturesque and safe cities in the country. The Department of Computer Science hosts several world-class research groups. |
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Current information about funding offered by the department can be found in this page. I have a funded position.