Current Projects

Project Title

Investigators

Funding Source

AI Synthesis of Structures for Additive Manufacturing

Ian Maskery (PI)
Ender Özcan (CI)

Amount Awarded - £202,419

Start date April 2023 - End date March 2025

Current engineering design approaches have reached their limit. This project will launch a revolutionary new field of research combining digital manufacturing and cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI). We aim to create an AI design assistant capable of generating 3D manufacturable structures beyond human imagination. The project will investigate suitable learning techniques based on deep neural networks, sources of training data, and the manufacturability of AI designs for a range of additive manufacturing (AM) processes. Our project seeks to address the question: What can AI learn from nature and apply directly to engineering problems?

EV-shAIR

Mark Gillott (PI)
Lucelia Rodrigues (CI)
Rong Qu (CI)

Project No. 10036368 - Innovate UK

Amount Awarded - £224,426

Start date October 2022 - End date August 2023

EV-shAIR focuses on the business models which will enable the creation of value from V2X technologies for the benefit of the electricity operations at the East Midlands Airport to create an exemplar by using the collective battery capacity of parked electric vehicles (EVs) at the airport for the needs of the airport daily operations. The output will help the current and future EV engagement with V2X especially at an airport setting which offers predictable time journeys from passengers parking their EV at the airport for pre booked period of time. EV-shAIR will establish the best ways for the airport to manage and incentivise these passengers to park their EVs at the airport and use the collective virtual EV battery array through the latest V2X technology to power the airport operations and where feasible, to share in the value generated with the EV owners. This project will aim to generate new business opportunities for both the airport and their customers and the grid.

Data Analytics for Cost Forecast in Construction Costings

Grazziela Figueredo (PI)
Isaac Triguero (CI)
Sarah Davidson (PI)

KTP Scheme under Project No. KTP11710. - Innovate UK and Gleeds Cost Management Limited

Amount Awarded - £136,963

Start date December 2019 - End date November 2023

To develop advanced data analytics methodology to provide structured and risk-modelled cost forecasts of new construction and refurbishment projects.

Algorithm Design Engineering (Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellow 2022)

Rong Qu (PI)

The Royal Society SRF\R1\221062

Amount Awarded - £55,069

Start date October 2022 - End date September 2023

This fellowship addresses the challenges in automated design of heuristic algorithms in combinatorial optimisation. With a platform built upon a novel consistent model, which serves as the first standard defining different algorithms, effective heuristic algorithms can be engineered quickly and automatically. Scattered knowledge of algorithm design can thus be retained in consistent datasets for machine learning, sustaining reusable expertise across research and applications.

Lighting the Way to a Healthy Nation - Optical 'X-rays' for Walk Through Diagnosis & Therapy

M Bradley (PI)
Engineering:
Michael Somekh (CI)
Amanda Wright (CI)
Computer Science:
Andrew J. Parkes (CI)
Michael Pound (CI)
and more.

EP/T020997/1

Amount Awarded - £5,577,754

Start date 01/06/2020 - End date 31/05/2025

This is a collaboration with the University of Edinburgh and the University of Southampton. Imagine a world where walking through a revolving door or archway allows "invisible light" (light outside our normal visual range) to generate detailed 3D images of any patient with high resolution! This is the global vision and targeted ambition of this 2050 proposal. This will allow us to target very early detection of disease using light (referred to as a non-ionising radiation technology) in association with fast computational methods and artificial intelligence (AI) to reconstruct images. This will be transformative, is a practical reality, and in addition potentially offers unique treatment options for the healthcare needs of 2050.

ORCHESTRA

Serhiy Bozhko (PI)
Jason Atkin (CI)

H2020-EU

Amount Awarded - €4,829,335 (€1,123,276 to Nottingham)

Start date 01/02/2021 - End date 31/01/2025

After the constantly growing utilisation of electric power for non-propulsive aircraft systems, the next-generation aircraft tends to be based at a great part on electrification. This solution offers significant advantages such as a reduction in aircraft weight, fuels and total life costs, increased reliability, and easier maintenance. Towards the transition to a much more-electric aircraft, the EU-funded ORCHESTRA project aims at developing and delivering a holistic framework of innovative, modular, scalable 'building blocks' that incorporate emerging technologies and groundbreaking design ideas. The COL Lab component of this project involves utilising optimisation and automatic controller synthesis techniques to aid in system design and development.

2ZERO, Towards Zero Emissions in Regional Aircraft Operations

Jason Atkin (PI)
Geert De Maere (CI)
Daniel Karapetyan (CI)

Innovate UK

Amount Awarded - £1,852,840 (£525,270 to Nottingham)

Start date 01/02/2021 - End date 31/01/2025

To develop a demonstrator for a hybrid electric aircraft suitable for commercial passenger use and evaluate the use of such an aircraft for commercial passenger use. The COL Lab element is to build a simulation of the airline, airports and airspace to allow the evaluation of different approaches for utilising the smaller hybrid-electric aircraft in point-to-point networks to gain connectivity across the UK, replacing larger aircraft in hub-and-spoke networks.

Interpretable Decision-Support Systems for Sustainable Business Operations

Isaac Triguero (PI)
Dario Landa-Silva (CI)
Nicholas Watson (CI)
Unilever PLC

Innovate UK

Amount Awarded - £179,186

Start date 01/03/2022 - End date 29/02/2024

To unlock business value from big data by building predictive models to guide faster decision-making and to develop business systems efficiently and with sustainability at the core.

Accelerated Discovery and Development of New Medicines. Prosperity Partnership for a Healthier Nation: GlaxoSmithKline, University of Strathclyde with University of Nottingham

Peter Licence (UoN PI)

(UoN CI's) - Christopher Moody, Clive Roberts, Ender Ozcan, Hon Lam, Jonathan Hirst, Liam Ball, Michael George, Michael Stocks, Ricky Wildman, Ross Denton, Simon Woodward, Victor Sans Sangorrin

Project Partners - Added Scientific Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK), Key Organics Ltd, Perceptive Engineering Ltd, Strem Chemicals UK Ltd.

EP/S035990/1

Amount Awarded - £5.5M

Start date 01/01/2019 - End Date 30/09/2024

A multi-disciplinary CDT in sustainable chemistry which aims to achieve a sustainable pipeline of performance molecules from design-to-delivery. A2P will create an Integrated Approach to Sustainable Chemistry, promoting a culture of waste minimisation, emphasising the development of a circular economy in terms of materials and matter replacing current modes of consumption and resource use.

Project Partners: Added Scientific Ltd, Arcinova, AstraZeneca UK Limited, BEACON Bioeconomy Research Centre, Britest Limited Bruker, CatScI Ltd, Coal Authority, Coventive Composites, Croda (Group), Enlumo Ltd, European Thermodynamics Ltd, eventMAP Ltd, Friedrich-Alexander Uni of Erlangen FAU, GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK), IUPAC, James I University (Jaume I), Key Organics Ltd, Lubrizol Ltd, McGill University, Pontifical Cath Uni of Rio Grande do Sul, Promethean Particles Ltd, Sygnature Discovery Limited, Synthomer Ltd Thomas Swan, UNIDO, Unilever (UK), Yale University Added Scientific Ltd, GlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK), Key Organics Ltd, Perceptive Engineering Ltd, Strem Chemicals UK Ltd and more.

EPSRC and SFI CDT in Sustainable Chemistry: Atoms-2-Products an Integrated Approach to Sustainable Chemistry

Peter Licence (PI)
Hon Lam (CI)
Francesca Paradisi (CI)
Edward Lester (CI)
Ricky Wildman (CI)
Tim Foster (CI)
Simon Woodward (CI)
Ender Ozcan (CI)
Simon Mosey (CI)

EP/S022236/1

Amount Awarded - £6.2M

Start date 01/10/2019 - End Date 31/03/2028

System Tuning and Adaptation for the Heathrow Target Start-Up Approval Time (TSAT) Allocation System

Jason Atkin (PI)
Geert De Maere (CI)

NATS

Amount Awarded - £227,300

Start date 25/04/2012 - Ongoing for enhancements

The TSAT system was developed by Nottingham for Heathrow Airport in 2008. An ongoing support and enhancement project started in 2012 and has been running ever since, enhancing the system to take account of new facilities and ongoing innovations and improvements at the airport. The system has been running live at the airport since 2013, and generates the predicted take-off times which aided the airport in becoming A-CDM compliant.