University of Hertfordshire 2022 Dual PhD Awards in Human and Activity Detection, UK

Our previous work in ACCOMPANY project (accompanyproject.eu) 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 readi-ness 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. 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 also required tospend first and third year at University of Hertfordshire, and to spend the second year of their PhD research in Sydney, Australia. Candidates are expected to have very good programming skills and prior experience in using ambient sensors and mobile robotic devices. Experiences in multisensory fusion is a bonus. Research in Computer Science at the University of Hertfordshire has been recognised as excellent in the REF 2014, with 50% of the research submitted rated as internationally excellent or world leading. The University of Hertfordshire provides a very stimulating environment, offering a large number of specialised and interdisciplinary seminars as well as general trainingand researcher development op-portunities. The University is situated in Hatfield, in the green belt just north of London.