PhD industrial studentship in Computing - Effective Algorithm Deployment to Hardware with Resource Aware Dynamic Optimization

Award Summary

100% fees covered, and a minimum tax-free annual living allowance of £17,668 (2022-23 UKRI rate), plus additional research funds (for travel, consumables, and additional living funds).

Overview

This PhD project is supported by ST Microelectronics, Europe’s leading chip and imaging sensor manufacturer. ST will provide additional funding for the project costs, including consumables, travel and additional living costs, hardware resources, training, and supervision.

Consumer electronics market, especially mobile phones, wearables, virtual reality, or mobile computing platforms in automobiles, robots, UAVs require considerable processing resources and heterogeneous processing elements consisting of multi-core CPU; GPUs, hardware accelerators (Systems-on-Chip) or even Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) provide promise for efficient algorithm deployment. However, they are not optimally used as it is challenging to choose the target hardware without considerable expertise. Even then the true heterogeneity is not explored as of yet when parts of the same algorithm run on the different platform. Further challenges are imposed upon the algorithm developers in profiling and targeting algorithmic components across a heterogeneous architecture, while ensuring portability and consistent behaviour of software.

With a focus on computer vision & machine learning tasks, this proposal aims to research effective algorithmic deployment to heterogeneous hardware through resource aware dynamic optimisation. Such research would enable energy aware low power computation while massively improving the run time performance, boost industrial productivity and reduce the time to market of its products.

Number of awards: 1

Start date: September 2023

Award duration: 4 years

Sponsor: EPSRC & ST Microelectronics

Supervisors: Dr Deepayan Bhowmik, Dr Robert Nicol (ST Microelectronics) Prof Boguslaw Obara

Eligibility criteria

You must have, or expect to gain, a minimum 2:1 Honours degree or international equivalent in a subject relevant to the proposed PhD project (inc. computing, mathematics, engineering etc.). Enthusiasm for research, the ability to think and work independently, excellent analytical skills and strong verbal and written communication skills are also essential requirements.

Home and international applicants (inc. EU) are welcome to apply and if successful will receive a full studentship. Applicants whose first language is not English require an IELTS score of 6.5 overall with a minimum of 5.5 in all sub-skills.

International applicants may require an ATAS (Academic Technology Approval Scheme) clearance certificate prior to obtaining their visa and to study on this programme.

How to apply

You must apply through the University’s Apply to Newcastle Portal

Once registered select ‘Create a Postgraduate Application’.

Use ‘Course Search’ to identify your programme of study:

• search for the ‘Course Title’ using the programme code: 8050F
• Research Area: Computing Science
• select ‘PhD Computer Science (full time) - Computing Science' as the programme of study

You will then need to provide the following information in the ‘Further Questions’ section:

• A ‘Personal Statement’ (this is a mandatory field) - upload a document or write a statement directly in to the application form
• The studentship code COMP2138 in the ‘Studentship/Partnership Reference’ field.
• When prompted for how you are providing your research proposal - select ‘Write Proposal’. You should then type in the title of the research project from this advert. You do not need to upload a research proposal.

Contact details: Dr. Deepayan Bhowmik

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