Download Teesside University Research Doctoral Scholarship Digital Futures

Teesside University Research Doctoral Scholarship
Digital Futures Institute
Project Title: Planning Modulo Theories
An enhanced stipend of £15,000 per annum is offered to a strong candidate for a full time PhD scholarship
within the Digital Futures Institute, Teesside University. The scholarship is funded by Teesside University, and
will be for three years, subject to satisfactory progress.
Significance of the work: The ability to plan, and to reason about the actions we perform is a fundamental
aspect of intelligent behaviour. The research field of Automated Planning is a key field within the Artificial
Intelligence community. Planning has applications in many varied applications. Examples include planning the
activities of non-player characters in computer games and creating activity and path plans in autonomous
robotics. Each new practical application contains interesting new features that are either difficult or
impossible to model with current planning modelling languages.
The traditional approach to solving such problems has been to add additional syntax to the modelling
language. An alternative approach that has recently been developed is known as Planning Modulo Theories.
Within this framework, new data types can be added to a core planner in an extensible way. Thus, to allow
real-value arithmetic, a module developer adds the specific functions he needs to the system and the planner
will be able to solve problems that depend on real numbers.
The successful applicant to this PhD scholarship will study in this new research field of Planning Modulo
Theories. There are many open questions that you can tackle related to both type-specific modules and the
core planning algorithm. The specific topic can be decided based on the successful applicant’s area of interest.
Director of Studies: Dr Peter Gregory
Supervisory Team: Dr Julie Porteous, Prof Marc Cavazza
Location: Based at Teesside University
Entry Requirements:
Applicants should hold or expect to obtain a good honours degree (2.1 or above) and/or Masters level
qualification in a relevant discipline. The successful applicant will have strong programming skills, knowledge
of classical AI planning and a good mathematical background. It is desirable that the applicant has knowledge
of constraint programming or Operations Research optimisation techniques.
Although we can accept applications from non-EU students, the funding will only cover a home/EU student
fee. The difference between the home/EU and non-EU student fee would be payable by the applicant.
Application forms and further details on the project can be obtained from the Graduate Research School
(Tel: Lorraine: 01642 384438; [email protected])
For informal enquiries, please contact Peter Gregory ([email protected]).
To view the latest version of Teesside University’s Research and Business Magazine, please click here
Closing Date: 11th July 2014, 4.30pm
We envisage that interviews will take place in mid-August 2014.
The Scholarship is expected to start in October 2014, but for a strong candidate could be deferred until
February 2015. It is important to state your preferred start date at interview.