PhD Engineering Scholarship: Sensors technology for medical robots (2025)

A 3.5 year PhD Engineering scholarship based in the high precision robotics and optical metrology research lab led by Dr. Rodrigo Aviles-Espinosa.

What you get

For 3.5 years, you will receive a tax-free stipend at a standard rate of £19,237 per year and your fees will be waived (at the UK, EU, or International rate). In addition, to a one-off Research and Training Support Grant of £2,000.

Type of award

Postgraduate Research

PhD project

Within the last two decades, multiple efforts have been focused on introducing robotic surgery in routine procedures. Current commercial robotic systems although intuitive, still require the surgeon to undergo tough a vast amount of training before working with human patients.

We aim to identify specific tasks in a surgical workflow that can be automated though the integration of non-contact sensing methods. This project will bring the fields of spectroscopic sensing and high precision robotics to develop the future optical surgical sensing devices to identify the potential tasks that can be automated in a surgical workflow.

The researcher will design, develop, and test novel optical sensing devices to obtain the tissue characteristics. The developed device will be fully integrated in our existing high precision robotic devices and then used to provide feedback to enable executing specific surgical tasks in a semi-automated way. This will be carried out by:

  1. Designing optical sensing devices for tissue properties identification.
  2. Building optical probes capable of providing visualization a for a given micro-surgical task.
  3. Assessing the performance of the developed tool to propose enhancements.
  4. Integrating the optical tool with our high precision robot (ROMI).
  5. Analysing complex sets of big-data images to extract relevant information using automated strategies.

 

https://www.sussex.ac.uk/research/centres/robotics-and-mechatronic-systems/research/rodrigo

 

Eligibility

This scholarship is availible to UK and overseas applicants. 

Eligible candidates will have an upper second-class (2:1) undergraduate degree or above, in a relevant field.  

The University of Sussex believes that the diversity of its staff and student community is fundamental to creative thinking, pedagogic innovation, intellectual challenge, and the interdisciplinary approach to research and learning. We celebrate and promote diversity, equality and inclusion amongst our staff and students. As such, we welcome applicants from all backgrounds.

Candidates must hold a degree in physics, physics engineer, and an internationally recognized master’s degree (or evidence of its completion in the nearest future) in physics, bioengineering, electrical and electronic engineering or a related field.

Knowledge in:

  • Sensing systems design
  • Robotics, mechatronics or equivalent areas
  • Optics and implementation of optical setups and Zemax simulation
  • Control software and programming skills (LabView, NI-RIO, NI-DAQ, etc.)
  • Image processing (image J, Matlab, etc)
  • CAD design

It will be evaluated favourably if the candidate has experience in spectroscopy and microscopy techniques, and in handling/developing tissue phantoms. Likewise, it will be desirable for the candidate to demonstrate good communication skills and command of the English language. The candidate should hold appropriate expetise from their studies or MSc project to contribute to the research field described above.

Number of scholarships available

1

Deadline

18 October 2024 23:59

How to apply

Apply online for a full time PhD in Engineering (JAN2025) using our step-by-step guide.
 

Please clearly state on your application that you are applying for the Sensors technology for medical robots scholarship under the supervison of Dr Rodrigo Aviles-Espinosa.

Please ensure you application includes each of the following: 

  • A research proposal.
  • Your CV.
  • Degree certificates and transcripts. 
  • 2 references, including a minimum of 1 from any institution studied at within the last 5 years.
  • If your first language is not English you will need to demonstrate that you meet the University’s English language requirements, see here for details of our accepted documentation.

Contact us

For general queries, please email our Research Support Team at phd.engineering@sussex.ac.uk. 

For project-specific queries, please email Dr Rodrigo Aviles-Espinosa, r.aviles-espinosa@sussex.ac.uk.

Availability

At level(s):
PG (research)

Application deadline:
18 October 2024 23:59 (GMT)

Countries

The award is available to people from these specific countries: