The 2013 Jeremy Laskowski Memorial Prize for Excellence in PhD Research has been awarded to Dr Shuja Ahmed for his innovative work on robot swarm systems. Through his research, Shuja created a system where groups of low-power robots can communicate with each other in order to complete tasks cooperatively.

Shuja completed his PhD, 'Development and Evaluation of Distributed Vision Processing Algorithms in Multi-Robotic Systems' at MERI in Spring 2013. His research at Hallam contributed to the EU-funded REPLICATOR project into robot swarming. It focused particularly on making efficient use of the shared computing power of a robot swarm to identify local landscape features and achieve tasks. In future, such systems could be used to tackle scenarios in dangerous or inhospitable environments.

Shuja's studies were supervised by Dr Fabio Caparrelli and Dr Reza Saatchi and contributed to a growing body of robotics-related research within MERI. This includes other EU projects to improve the capabilities of cooperative, multi-robot systems and an EPSRC project to develop of novel gripping systems.

Following on from his thesis work, Shuja immediately gained employment with Guidance Navigation Ltd, an internationally successful technology company. His job, based at the company's Innovation Centre in Leicester, is closely related to his PhD research in that he continues to work on robot vision systems. The company concentrates on civil applications for automated guided vehicles such as unmanned factory vehicles. These include high precision automation systems for use in warehouses and marine environments.

At MERI, we are continuing to develop and increase the number of research students, recruiting 20-25 research students each year while also increasing the quality of training and experience. This expansion has been achieved through increased student sponsorship with a particular growth in industrially-sponsored projects. You can find out more about our postgraduate research schedule by clicking here.