Subject overview

Programmes

• PhD in Engineering
• MPhil in Engineering

Recent thesis titles

Bioimpedance analysis techniques for malignant tissue identification

Broadband electric field sensing and its application to material characterisation and nuclear quadrupole resonance

Development of an automated electrogustometer

EHD phenomena in grease lubricated contacts

Experimentally verified fluid loading models for slender horizontal cylinders in waves

Flow and heat transfer measurements inside a heated multiple rotating cavity with axial throughflow

High-capacity multiuser multiantenna communication techniques

High QoS and energy efficient medium access control protocols for wireless sensor networks

Integrated vetronics systems: mixed integrity vetronics verification and validation

A methodology to enhance Urban Reconnaissance UGV requirements through simulation

Remote applications of electric potential sensors in electrically unshielded environments

Verification and validation of complex vetronic systems with FlexRay

Research and professional/industry links

The Department fosters strong links with industry, both to support collaborative research and to provide routes to knowledge transfer and commercialisation of the outcomes of its research.

The activities in mechanical and automotive engineering are supported by the likes of Jaguar Land Rover, General Electric and SKF. Members of faculty are also active in UK and European research and industry networks such as the European Turbine Network.

In the electrical and electronic engineering area, there are notable examples of successful commercialisation such as the award-winning electric potential sensors (EPS) that are being commercialised by Plessey Semiconductors as the EPIC sensor chip; and a University spin-out company, TexRAD, which has developed software for the analysis of medical images and has recently demonstrated the ability to detect brain texture anomalies in Asperger’s Syndrome patients.

Many of the research activities are, by their nature, interdisciplinary and groups collaborate with a wide range of other researchers both within the University and globally. We are active contributors to the University’s strategic research themes including those that address environment, health and safety, and security.

The Department has close links with the professional engineering institutions. A number of our academic staff are Fellows of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET), the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE), the Royal Academy of Engineering, or the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Many are also local branch members and the University regularly hosts talks and events of interest to staff, students and local businesses.

Entry requirements

All Engineering and design research degrees

A first- or upper second-class undergraduate honours degree in an engineering discipline. Applicants from other backgrounds may be considered if they have suitable qualifications or work experience.

Please refer to column A in Overseas qualifications.

Additional admissions information

If you are a non-EEA student you must obtain clearance by the UK Government Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) for this degree. In order to allow sufficient time to process your application and for you to apply for ATAS clearance the latest date by which we must receive your application is: September start - apply by 1 August, January start - apply by 30 November, May start - apply by 31 March.

Related subject

• Computing, artificial intelligence and IT

Fees and funding

Fees

For more information, visit Fees, Fees by programme, Living expenses, and Other costs.

MPhil in Engineering
PhD in Engineering

MPhil in Engineering

'Home' UK/EU students: £3,900¹
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,900²
Overseas students: £16,200³

¹ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
² The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
³ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.

PhD in Engineering

'Home' UK/EU students: £3,900¹
Channel Island and Isle of Man students: £3,900²
Overseas students: £16,200³

¹ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
² The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.
³ The fee shown is for the academic year 2013.

Funding

The funding sources listed below are for the subject area you are viewing and may not apply to all degrees listed within it. Please check the description of the individual funding source to make sure it is relevant to your chosen degree. For general information, refer to Funding.

Faculty interests

Specialist research areas

Research in the Department of Engineering and Design is organised into three main groups with several specialist sub-groups. For more detailed information, refer to the groups listed below and visit the Department of Engineering and Design: Research.

Biomedical Engineering Group

This group specialises in research into devices and computational techniques for medical and biological imaging and image processing, with a particular focus on cancer diagnosis and treatment. The activities are truly interdisciplinary and include collaborations with the School of Life Sciences at Sussex, clinical practitioners and companies in the medical device and medical imaging sectors.

Faculty research interests include:

Professor Chris Chatwin, Dr Phil Birch, Dr Rupert Young Image processing for medical diagnosis: computer-assisted diagnosis with Professor K Miles of the Brighton and Sussex Medical School (BSMS). The research provides imaging biomarkers in cancerous tissue by wavelet filtering in an apparently normal contrast-enhanced CT image of the liver. We are currently extending the technique to 3D-texture analysis of the whole liver and lung. This research is the subject of a patent application and commercialisation of the software.

Dr David Li Finite-element analysis on waveguide devices; numerical modelling on optical communication devices; imaging and sensing systems; mixed-signal circuits, imaging processors, and firmware design.

Dr Constantino Carlos Reyes-Aldasoro Medical imaging analysis; tumour micro-vasculature, tracking and shape analysis; image reconstruction; numerical analysis; neutrophil tracking algorithm.

Dr Wei Wang Biomedical signal and image processing; 3D image analysis and visualisation, medical electronics, clinical applications in early-stage cancer detection and treatment, cell/molecular imaging.

Electrical and Electronic Engineering Group

Electrical and electronic research at Sussex is focused on advanced sensor technologies, mobile communications, and signal and image processing. The outcomes of its activities address important problems in areas including the health of the ageing population, safety and security, biometrics, advanced networking and mobile communications. The group has strong links with industry and Government agencies and works closely through the University with the Sussex Innovation Centre (SInC) to commercialise its research.

Projects are funded by a mix of UK Research Councils and agencies, industry and the European Union.

Research is conducted in three specialist sub-groups:

• Communications Research Group

• Industrial Informatics and Manufacturing Systems

• Sensor Technology Research Centre (STRC).

Electrical and electronic engineering is well resourced in terms of facilities including surface-mount circuit prototyping, a clean room with fabrication facilities, electromagnetically shielded rooms, dedicated embedded systems hardware and software, and dc-to-microwave test and measurement capability.

Communications Research Group

This group has expertise in the area of mobile and wireless communications focused on improving capacity, power and spectrum efficiency, reliability, quality of service, and low-complexity implementations. It promotes basic and applied research employing leading-edge communication technologies to meet the new emerging requirements and applications.

Work involves theoretical studies, simulations, and implementations using advanced software tools and digital hardware. The research impacts a number of important areas in the communications industry and practical systems in different sectors such as health, transport, energy, security and environment.

Faculty research interests include:

Dr Falah Ali Mobile communications: digital communication techniques, multiple access, multiple antenna/MIMO, channel coding, co-operative communications, distributed video coding.

Wireless networks: adhoc networks, wireless sensor networks, vehicular communications, real-time and high-reliability communications.

Embedded digital systems: advanced communication algorithms on embedded digital hardware, DSP and FPGA. Development of testbed demonstrators with integrated networks.

Industrial Informatics and Manufacturing Systems

Research in this group is focused on digital image processing; computer vision; optical computing, holography and communication; optical metrology; network and control theory. These activities find application in a wide range of strategically important areas including product security, biometrics, automated face recognition, event detection and traffic monitoring. As an example, mobile-phone hardware and software has been developed to allow the phone to scan and recognise human irises using novel algorithms that have been patented and commercialised.

Faculty research interests include:

Professor Chris Chatwin Advanced manufacturing: manufacturing and enterprise simulation and modelling, integrated total quality management. Fibre-optic communications. Security and surveillance systems: machine vision and image-processing, neural networks, mobile image acquisition, biometrics.

Dr Phil Birch Fibre-optic communications: photo-refractive holography, holographic optical memory, four-wave mixing, spatial light modulators, dynamic light-shaping elements, optical pattern recognition, optical filtering, electro-optic systems design.
Machine vision and image-processing: Wiener filtering, foveating systems, mobile image acquisition, autonomous mobile robots, biometrics.

Dr Tai Yang Networks and control systems for power generation control applications and in-vehicle control systems, control of hybrid and electrical vehicles, wind power generation and energy storage.

Dr Rupert Young Advanced manufacturing, fibre-optic communications, photo-refractive holography, holographic optical memory, four-wave mixing, spatial light modulators, dynamic light-shaping elements, optical pattern recognition, optical filtering, and electro-optic systems design.
Machine vision and image-processing: neural networks, Wiener filtering, foveating systems, mobile image acquisition, biometrics.

Sensor Technology Research Centre (STRC)

The STRC is a world-leading centre focusing on electric and magnetic sensor technologies and their applications. The focus is on the acquisition of weak electrical signals in challenging environments.

It has pioneered a new class of device with generic measurement capability, the Electric Potential Sensor (EPS). This has attracted considerable attention, winning a number of prestigious awards and gaining wide publicity in the technical press. The first generation of EPSs has been licensed to industrial partners and is now being marketed as an integrated circuit device.

Research activity includes the fundamentals of sensor operation, modelling of measurement scenarios and application specific projects. These applications are very broad and include electrophysiological monitoring, such as cardiac imaging and wireless linked electroencephalogram arrays, muscle and eye signal detection for human-machine interfacing and assistive technologies, security, forensics, geophysical measurements in collaboration with the British Geological Survey, materials characterisation for the semiconductor industry, and electric field detection of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) signals.

The Centre is well resourced with electro-magnetically shielded rooms, cryogenic facilities, clean rooms, electron beam lithography fabrication, electronic systems spanning dc-to-the-millimetre waves; and surface-mount fabrication facilities.

Faculty research interests include:

Dr Ahmet Aydin Non-invasive sensors, electric field sensors for geophysical measurements, electric field detection of NMR signals.

Dr Helen Prance Electric field sensors for assisted living, human-machine interfaces, remote detection of life signs and nuclear resonance detection.

Professor Robert Prance Sensors for electric and magnetic field imaging, charge fingerprint imaging, non-destructive testing of materials, and low-noise instrumentation.

Mechanical Engineering Group

This group provides cutting-edge research in engineering systems aimed at improving energy efficiency, reliability, and safe and cost-effective operation. The group has attracted research grants from, and formed collaborations with, a variety of local, national and international public and industrial sources including SEEDA, EPSRC, Royal Society, British Council, European Commission, General Electric, Jaguar Landrover and SKF.

Research is conducted in three specialist sub-groups:

• Dynamics and Automotive Engineering (DAE)

• Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre (TFMRC)

• Tribology.

Dynamics and Automotive Engineering Group (DAE)

DAE is known internationally for its high-quality automotive research and fundamental work in dynamics and control. The group has a broad range of interests such as the convergence of control, non-linear dynamics, and signal-processing activities applied mainly to automotive engineering.

Facilities include two engine-test cells, an engine-test laboratory, a full range of emissions measurement equipment, calibration equipment for engine control, and laser-based vibration measurement hardware. The primary focus is now directed towards CO₂ reduction in transport through energy conversion efficiency improvements in engines, and through ‘light-weighting’ and drag-reduction technologies. For dynamics and automotive engineering this means reducing vehicle CO₂ emissions (well-to-wheels) by improving powertrain and vehicle efficiencies particularly of internal combustion (IC) engines in conventional and hybrid electric vehicles, and by better understanding vehicle noise emissions to allow weight reduction.

Faculty research interests include:

Dr Julian Dunne Engineering dynamics. Nonlinear system modelling and analysis; optimal control; vehicle, engine and rotor dynamics; noise, vibration and harshness applications in automotive and aerospace engineering.

Dr Zhijin Peng Automotive systems. Internal combustion (IC) engine combustion, performance and emissions control, fuel injection and heat transfer, homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion, gasoline-lean and stratification combustion.

Dr Yevgen Petrov Modelling, numerical methods, analysis and optimisation of forced and self-excited vibration of jointed structures with friction, gaps and other nonlinear interactions at contact interfaces.

Dr William Wang Machine condition monitoring, digital signal processing techniques, vibrational analysis and structural dynamics, wavelets and neural networks, measurement fault diagnosis.

Dr Zhiyin Yang Large-eddy simulation; flow stability and transition; turbulent combustion; two phase flow; gas turbine combustion system; heat transfer; turbine machinery flow.

Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre (TFMRC)

The Thermo-Fluid Mechanics Research Centre is a dedicated research laboratory specialising in flow and heat transfer, and has substantial experimental and computational facilities. It has a proven track record in research, particularly in relation to gas turbine engines, and has attracted significant funding over previous years from industry, the European Commission and the EPSRC to conduct cutting-edge research on a wide range of engineering problems.

The Centre has a significant experimental research infrastructure including a number of high-pressure air supplies such as the Rolls-Royce DART engine-driven compressor. It also hosts the DANTEC Centre of Excellence in Non-Invasive Instrumentation and has an array of state-of the-art flow instrumentation including laser anemometry, particle imaging velocimetry (PIV), phase Doppler anemometry (PDA) and hot wire anemometry.

The Centre has expertise in temperature measurements including thermal imaging and liquid crystal measurements, as well as an in-house computational fluid dynamics code, SURF, which is an unstructured general-purpose compressible flow and aeroelasticity solver.

Current experimental projects funded by General Electric are focused on internal air systems of gas turbine engines. A major computational research project, funded by the European Commission, is H2-IGCC, which aims at developing low-emission gas turbine technology using hydrogen-rich Syngas. Research funded by the EPSRC and industry aims at the development of new technologies for waste heat recovery using organic rankine cycle.

Faculty research interests include:

Dr Vasudevan Kanjirakkad Experimental aerodynamics/heat transfer, turbomachinery aerodynamics, rotating disc and swirling flows, turbulence and boundary layer transition, flow instrumentation, sustainable energy.

Dr Christopher Long Experimental heat transfer and fluid-flow measurements, turbulence, application of optically based measurements, and sustainable and renewable energy.

Professor Naser Sayma Computational fluid dynamics, turbomachinery performance, unstructured grid generation, parallel computing, and sustainable and renewable energy.

Dr Hao Xia Computational fluid dynamics, computational aeroacoustics, large-eddy simulation, turbomachinery heat transfer, level set method.

Tribology

Tribological research is at the forefront of the efforts to address the demands of the advances in material science, manufacturing, technology and the needs for better products, improved human life, and contributing to energy savings and a cleaner environment.

The group researches areas including lubrication, dynamics of lubricated contacts, mechanical transmissions, contact mechanics and numerical modelling of lubricated contacts.

Our experimental facilities include a PCS instruments optical interferometry test rig of EHD film measurement, an optical interferometry rig with a high-speed imaging system for dynamic testing of liquid films, impedance/gain-phase analyser, and a range of viscometers.

Research collaborations span both academic institutions and industry including Imperial College, UK; Kyodo Yushi and Kyushu University, Japan; SKF R&D, Netherlands; and Wroclaw University of Technology, Romania.

Faculty research interests include:

Dr Romeo Glovnea Tribology, fundamentals of lubrication, experimental techniques in thin-film lubrication, mechanical transmissions (CVTs), contact mechanics.

Careers and perspectives

Our graduates are successful in gaining employment in industry and academia. Recent destinations for doctoral graduates include development engineer for Nokia, performance engineer for Bowman Power, software engineer for Applications Solutions Ltd, applications engineer for Plessey Semiconductors, and civil servant through the fast-track route. Our graduates also regularly take up postdoctoral research positions at Sussex and other universities in the UK and overseas.

School and contacts