PhD Studentship in Mechanical Engineering: Improve Motor Learning in Children through Connecting Robots

Award summary

100% of home fees covered, and a minimum tax-free annual living allowance of £19,237 (2024/25 UKRI rate).

Overview

Many real-life scenarios involve collaboration between two individuals, where the reliance on haptic communication arising from physical interactions is crucial. This project will investigate the mechanisms underlying the collaboration between humans, by physically coupling two individuals through robots.

The main objectives are: i) to investigate how to take full advantage of haptic communication for enhancing motor learning, studying how learning is affected by the levels of connection and how these can be optimised to improve the acquisition of new motor skills; ii) to apply the knowledge gathered from the use of connecting robots to a real-life application, i.e. to foster handwriting learning in primary school children while interacting with their teacher or caregiver.

The project is structured in two main phases.

Phase1: an experimental setup, involving two robotic manipulators connecting people during the execution of a common 3 DoF task, will be used in a set of experiments with two individuals with different motor skills, to define the optimal connection for enhancing the learning process to be used in phase2.

Phase2: the insights gathered from the lab experiments will be transferred to a real-life application, i.e. handwriting learning in children. This phase will include: a) the design of a haptic interface specifically devised for handwriting; b) validation of the developed setup on adults; c) assessment of handwriting learning in children.

Number of awards: 1

Start date: 6^th January 2025

Award duration: 3.5 years

Sponsor: EPSRC

Supervisors

Lead Supervisor: Domenico Formica

Co-supervisor: Alessia Noccaro

External supervisor: Etienne Burdet

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.

This studentship is open to Home (UK) students only. 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.

How to apply

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

Once registered select ‘Create a Postgraduate Application’.

Select 2024 as the ‘Year of entry’ for a January 2025 start date.

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

• Search for the ‘Course Title’ using the programme code: 8090F
• Research Area: Mechanical and Systems Engineering’
• Select ‘PhD Mechanical Engineering’ as the programme of study - September 2024’. Our PG Admissions staff will change the start date to January 2025 after you've applied.

You will then need to provide the following information in the ‘Further Details’ 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 ENG130 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: Domenico Formica Alessia Noccaro

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