School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics Semester Abroad Scheme

The School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics (SoCEM) invite BTech and BE students in their eighth semester who are taking courses in the areas of electronics; robotics; computer science or electrical engineering to join the second semester in Plymouth in January/February 2018 to complete a project alongside our own BEng students.

This year nominated students will be able to apply for one of our proposed projects listed below. The application process is competitive and applicants will be judged via the following criteria: 

• previous academic performance
  
• your personal statement – this should express their aims and objectives
  
• quality of application.
  

How to apply

To apply please complete the application form along with the following support documents:

• your third, fourth, fifth and sixth (seventh if possible) semester results
  
• personal statement in Section 5 of the application (this should express your aims, objectives, why you have applied for your selected project and how your education to date matches your selected project)
  
• your university semester abroad co-ordinator must sign section 8
  
• copy of the photo page of your passport.
  

Project one

A bespoke inertial measurement unit (IMU) for vehicle navigation tracking

Many IMUs are digital, sometimes with some fixed signal processing on board. The design of a bespoke IMU with analogue accelerometers and gyroscopes. Each of the six outputs will have their own ADC on board. For a particular application for the IMU, analogue electronics will be used for filtering of the accelerometer and gyroscope raw data prior to digitisation.

Supervisor: Dr David Jenkins

Project two

Nanocomposite Films for Pressure Sensing in Glaucoma Instrumentation

Building on previous research in this area at Plymouth the project aim is to fabricate pressure/strain sensor array for pressure/strain mapping in an x-y plane. Films will be grown using a piezoelectric polymer host (PVDF) and incorporating small amounts of functionalised graphene. The films should be a homogenous and a few microns thick. The project will provide film fabrication experience, along with exposure to advanced characterisation systems - AFM, Raman, SEM etc.

Supervisor: Dr David Jenkins

Project three

A LabVIEW controller for  Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) instrumentation

An SPR instrument has been fully designed and built for high sensitivity detection of nanoparticles. There are many other applications though. An existing template exists to show how the software should function to control the instrumentation and to acquire and process the acquired data. Good programming skills are required and a knowledge of LabVIEW preferred.

Supervisor: Dr David Jenkins

Project four

Heterojunction intrinsic thin-film solar cells

Heterojunction Intrinsic Thin-film (HIT) solar cells have the potential to exhibit very high conversion efficiency. The development of a cost-effective fabrication method holds the key to its commercial exploitation. The objective of the project is to study and fabricate HIT solar cells by employing sputter deposition and microfabrication techniques available in the cleanroom based Wolfson Nanomaterials and Devices Laboratory. A simulation software will also be employed for the analysis of the effect of layer structure, film thickness and dopant concentration on the IV characteristics and conversion efficiency of the solar cells.

Supervisor: Dr Genhua Pan

Project five

LabView based measurements of electronic component

This project will interface MyDAQ with LabView to collect current-voltage data from electronic components. The data collected will contribute to our research on graphene biosensors.

Supervisor: Dr Shakil Awan

Tuition fees

This year’s Semester Abroad Scheme will cost £2,000. This fee will be refunded to any students who enrol on one of our master programmes within our School of Computing, Electronics and Mathematics starting in September 2018. In addition, students who apply for one of our masters could also be eligible for further scholarships.