LSBU is the top modern university in London for world-leading and internationally excellent research in General Engineering, which includes The Built Environment and Architecture research - Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014.
The wide range of research activities in our School, together with the mix of academic staff, post-doctoral research fellows and visiting professors, allows us to offer a stimulating and diverse environment.
Research themes
Research in the area of engineering and the built environment is carried out by specialist centres. Most academic staff belong to one or more of these and research students can expect to join a small team working on particular problems. Research themes include:
- Efficient and Renewable Energy in Building
Research areas where we are able to offer supervision include:
- Passive low energy design and building physics, climate change impact and adaptation of existing buildings
- Building services, energy efficient and renewable energy technologies
- Refrigeration, air conditioning, heating, cooling, and energy storage technologies
- Electrical building services including lighting, power and control
- Environmental and architectural acoustics
- Life cycle assessment, maintenance and asset management.
- Structural engineering, structural analysis and simulation,
- Transport engineering
- Water systems and management
- Sustainability development
- Urban resilience
- Ageing research in the built and human environments
- Green construction
- Energy and resource efficiency
- Monitoring energy demands
- Energy assessment, measurement and performance of buildings
- Renewable energy in cities, communities and districts
- Disaster resilience
A member of staff, expert in the chosen field, is directly responsible for guiding and supporting your research programme. As a research student you'll become part of our thriving academic community.
A PhD, by definition, is an original contribution to knowledge. A research degree is different from a taught course. Research students are expected to self-direct their learning with support from a supervisory team.
Read more about research in the School of the Built Environment and Architecture.
Part funded PhD studentship.
This PhD research programme studentship is being offered by Dr Haydar Aygun at School of Built Environment and Architecture, London South Bank University Academic staff : LSBU People Finder
PhD research programme title: A low carbon, Artificial Intelligence based engineering system to monitor environmental noise.
Keywords: AI, Noise, Environment, Acoustic-Monitoring, Modelling
Background and rationale: Currently there are not any time efficient and low carbon acoustic system to monitor adverse changes in the built environment. There is a need for an engineering system to monitor adverse changes in the built environment.
Traditional environmental noise monitoring systems measure sound levels, store the data on internal memory card. Then the data is transferred to computer for analysing environmental noise parameters. They are expensive, time consuming, and contribute to carbon emission, especially for long term measurements. The costs of such a system are prohibitive, especially for developing countries. There is a need for a low cost, time efficient, and low carbon engineering system utilising artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning algorithms to monitor environmental noise remotely.
Aims: This PhD programme aims to design, build, and test an intelligent low-cost and low carbon noise monitoring system using green technology. The low carbon system will be capable of monitoring environmental noise for a longer period.
Methods: There is a growing need (regulation-driven) to monitor airports with a low cost, robust, and simple system. The AI and machine learning algorithms will be mitigating most of the laborious work. The expected research impact will show how such a system could be implemented around a noisy environment such as an airport to monitor environmental noise. An environmental sound monitor will be built and programmed using low-cost commercial electronics such as MEMS microphones, drastically reducing the cost of implementation. The system developed will be tested to international standards for compliance. Another new aspect of this research is that the system will be networked to create a platform. This platform would capture the sound environment and tag sound event spectrograms at the local level through Edge AI classification.
A central server will host the main AI. This will improve the accuracy of the classification through directed learning, without requiring user intervention. This will reduce the laborious nature of tagging unusual sound events which breach planning, construction, or demolition conditions.
Funding: The funding offered for this programme includes a yearly stipend (£18,622), inside London allowance (£2,040), support, training, and printing costs (£1,620), and the cost of a laptop in the 1st year (£1,000). This funding is per year for three years full time. The successful candidate will need to be enrolled for a January 2024 start.
The selected PhD student should hold a BEng in Mechanical Engineering, MSc in Acoustics, and experience in environmental noise monitoring, acoustic product development, analysing noise data, machine learning, and acoustic noise modelling.
Closing date Wednesday 01 November.
You will be contacted via email if you are shortlisted for interview. We aim to complete the shortlisting process within 1 week of the advert closing date (1 November). LSBU's on-line postgraduate application form will only be completed by the successful candidate after selection. The successful candidate will need to be enrolled from January 2024 due to the conditions of the scholarship. Informal enquiries to Dr Haydar Aygun [email protected].
