PhD Project in Contactless healthcare monitoring for multi-environment adaptability

Radio frequency-based contactless sensing has attracted significant attention in recent years, driven by the ubiquitous deployed IoT infrastructures and the advancement of wireless communications technologies.

Radio frequency-based contactless sensing has attracted significant attention in recent years, driven by the ubiquitous deployed IoT infrastructures and the advancement of wireless communications technologies. Unlike conventional sensing modalities, radio frequency-based contactless sensing does not require the entities to equip with any on-body sensors, instead, it leverages the signal distortions and machine/deep learning for various sensing tasks. Moreover, such set of approaches is particularly effective in poor illumination and obscured environments without any practical inconvenience and privacy leakage.

This PhD project will focus on healthcare monitoring applications using the ubiquitous Wi-Fi signals to monitor respiration under environmental changes, employing advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and signal processing techniques.

One of the key challenging issues is the heterogeneity of wireless data. The collected data can exhibit varying statistical characteristics due to various uncertainties such as multipath propagation, hardware imperfections, and interference from nearby individuals. This variability can lead to pattern inconsistency, resulting in degraded performance. By addressing this challenge, the project aims to explore the limits of wireless sensing, enlarge the sensing range, and improve the accuracy, robustness and generalization of contactless healthcare monitoring systems.

Funding Information

To be eligible for consideration for a Home DfE or EPSRC Studentship (covering tuition fees and maintenance stipend of approx. £19,237 per annum), a candidate must satisfy all the eligibility criteria based on nationality, residency and academic qualifications.

To be classed as a Home student, candidates must meet the following criteria and the associated residency requirements:

• Be a UK National,
or • Have settled status,
or • Have pre-settled status,
or • Have indefinite leave to remain or enter the UK.

Candidates from ROI may also qualify for Home student funding.

Previous PhD study MAY make you ineligible to be considered for funding.

Please note that other terms and conditions also apply.

Please note that any available PhD studentships will be allocated on a competitive basis across a number of projects currently being advertised by the School.

A small number of international awards will be available for allocation across the School. An international award is not guaranteed to be available for this project, and competition across the School for these awards will be highly competitive.

Academic Requirements:

The minimum academic requirement for admission is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI Higher Education provider in a relevant discipline, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University.

Entrance requirements

Graduate
The minimum academic requirement for admission to a research degree programme is normally an Upper Second Class Honours degree from a UK or ROI HE provider, or an equivalent qualification acceptable to the University. Further information can be obtained by contacting the School.

International Students

For information on international qualification equivalents, please check the specific information for your country.

English Language Requirements

Evidence of an IELTS* score of 6.0, with not less than 5.5 in any component, or equivalent qualification acceptable to the University is required (*taken within the last 2 years).

International students wishing to apply to Queen’s University Belfast (and for whom English is not their first language), must be able to demonstrate their proficiency in English in order to benefit fully from their course of study or research. Non-EEA nationals must also satisfy UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) immigration requirements for English language for visa purposes.

For more information on English Language requirements for EEA and non-EEA nationals see: www.qub.ac.uk/EnglishLanguageReqs.