Engineer becomes Swansea University’s second Newton Fellow
A researcher set to join Swansea University’s School of Engineering has been awarded the prestigious Newton International Fellowship.
Dr Sk. Faruque Ali will join the University in January 2010 to begin work on his project entitled ‘Dynamics and control of smart structural systems with uncertainty’.
The Newton International Fellowship scheme selects the best early stage post-doctoral researchers from all over the world and offers support for two years at UK research institutions. Dr Ali’s award is worth £99K with the possibility of a further £60K follow-up funding over the next ten years of his research. Dr Ali will work under the supervision of Professor Adhikari, Chair of Aerospace Engineering at the University.
This is the second year in a row that the Newton International Fellowship has been awarded to a researcher at Swansea’s School of Engineering. In 2008, Research Assistant Dr Rajib Chowdhury won the award for his project based on the dynamic behaviour of flight vehicles, also under the supervision of Professor Sondipon Adhikari.
Professor Adhikari said: “We are delighted to have been awarded the Newton International Fellowship 2009, which is highly sought after. Smart technologies will play a significant role in the future of aerospace vehicles. This two-year research program, focusing on the uncertainty issues, will help us to make fundamental contributions in this exciting research area.”
“The project will analyse the dynamic behaviour and control of smart structural systems with uncertainty. The smartness in structural systems originates from proper sensing of environmental factors and then uses the sensed data to actuate the system in a way that it should behave as desired. Smartness ensures that the structure shows optimum performance under changes in environmental conditions like humans do. This will be achieved by combining robust system identification algorithms with intelligent post-processing of data obtained through an optimal sensor network”.
“The outcome of the project will minimize the number of sensors and actuators with increased performances. This, on one hand will reduce the initial cost of smart systems, and on the other hand, will reduce the lifelong maintenance cost. This will improve the safety of complex aerospace vehicles at lower cost.”
Dr. Ali said: “Newton International Fellowship is a prestigious award and very competitive. I am honoured to be awarded the fellowship to do research at Swansea University. Swansea University provides an independent research environment and is a world class experimental facility. The fellowship will help us to do fundamental and application oriented research in smart structures, which is the future of Bio-technology, Aeros;pace, Mechanical and Civil Engineering”.