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Fully Funded Doctoral Studentship: Aggregation of large populations of Markov models - verification, control, and applications on the power grid

Posted: 9th September 2015

Fully Funded Doctoral Studentship

Aggregation of large populations of Markov models - verification, control, and applications on the power grid 

Supervisor: Alessandro Abate

Start Date: January 2016  

The Automated Verification Research Group is offering one fully-funded DPhil studentship in Oxford University's Department of Computer Science, under the supervision of Prof. Alessandro Abate.  The studentship is for home/EU students, and includes provision for travel funds and related research/educational expenses. The studentships will be funded for four years and will start as early as possible.     

Broadly, we are interested to work on problems of formal aggregation of large-scale populations of Markov models, with the goal of providing new computational algorithms for the optimal policy synthesis over such a population. The project has an applicative side: aggregating and controlling large populations of photovoltaic panels over the power grid. The project is jointly coordinated with engineers from the R&D department of RTE, the French grid operator. The end goal is the robust, reliable control of such heterogeneous and large-scale engineering systems, attaining global stability features and reliability requirements. The location of the DPhil will be at the University of Oxford (UK), and the successful candidate will benefit from visits to RTE R&D department, located in Versailles (France).   

We are interested in using techniques from formal methods and performance analysis (such as probabilistic model checking, SMT, and other deductive approaches) from Computer Science, as well as modern approaches from control theory (correct-by-design synthesis, abstraction-based synthesis, compositional analysis) and applied probability (stochastic analysis and control).  We thus look for an applicant with a profile in any of these areas: suitable candidates need to have a strong background in mathematics, with an expertise on power systems applications that is a plus.  Candidates must also have good writing, communication, presentation, and organisation skills - collaborative aspects will be an emphasis of this DPhil.   

Applicants must in addition satisfy the entry requirements for studying for a doctorate at Oxford:  

There is no deadline for applying. We will continue to process applications until a suitable candidate is found.   Candidates are therefore recommended to apply as soon as possible and to inform Julie.sheppard@cs.ox.ac.uk when they have done so.  Please also email if you have any questions about the application process.  

If you have any technical questions about the DPhil studentship, please email: Alessandro.Abate@cs.ox.ac.uk   

Please quote CS-AA-Stud16 in the studentship reference box.