PhD Studentship: Smart sensors for agricultural sustainability: Federated Learning for improving farming efficiencies

About this project

The project is part of a cluster of PhD projects entitled Sustainable Terrestrial and Maritime Food Systems: Environmental Technologies and their Implications. This particular project will look at the integration of smart sensors reading a wide range of physical variables, e.g., water table levels, rainfall, atmospheric pressure, temperature, crop luminosity, soil quality, etc. Use of this data has the potential to increase agricultural efficiency and reduce environmental impact. A combination of Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AL) will combine this continuous stream of data with external data, such as highly accurate weather forecasts, and convert it into quality information in real-time to create tools which will inform farmers’ operational decisions in relation to soil and crop management.

The research aims of this project are:

1. To investigate the use of sensors for measuring crop quality
2. To develop a centralised AI/ML algorithm for making management recommendations to farmers
3. To investigate the use of Block Chain for secure and trustworthy Federated Distributed Learning and develop federated AI for the application

For informal inquiries, please contact please contact Dr. Chandrasekhar Kambhampati (c.kambhampati@hull.ac.uk); or Dr. Muhammad Khalid (M.khalid@hull.ac.uk )

About the research cluster / about the research environment

Sustainable Terrestrial and Maritime Food Systems: Environmental Technologies and their Implications

This PhD project is part of a cluster of inter-related, inter-disciplinary projects, which between them focus on the implications of environmental technologies for the practices of people involved in primary food production on both land and sea. Our food and energy production systems contribute significantly to environmental problems, including climate change, and technological solutions are often proposed as ways of reducing their carbon footprints. Yet these can be challenging to implement and can have unanticipated effects on the practices of those engaged in farming and fishing. This cluster of projects involves a combination of scientific projects aiming to develop and test different environmental technologies, and social science projects aiming to look at the effects on the practices of primary food producers as society aims for a low carbon world.

Supervisors Dr. Chandrasekhar Kambhampati, Dr. Muhammad Khalid   Funding

• The successful applicant will receive a fee waiver and a maintenance grant / stipend for three years (full-time) or five years (part-time), which covers the research period of the PhD. The fee waiver for 22/23 is £4596 (Home fee) and the maintenance grant is £17668 per annum. This rises each year in line with the UKRI’s recommended stipend allowance.

• If you need to move into a fourth year (full-time) or sixth year (part-time) to complete your thesis, please note that you will not receive a tuition fee waiver or maintenance grant during this period and you will be required to pay a continuation fee.

    Eligibility and entry requirements

Please see the University of Hull webpage

International applicants

This opportunity comes with a Home fee waiver only, which will not cover the full International fee. You will therefore need to pay the difference between the Home fee and the International fee and will need to provide evidence that you have sufficient funds to cover this.

How to apply   Applications are via the University of Hull webpage  

Closing date for applications

10 February 2022

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