Will Planes Be Pilotless? The Future of Commercial Aviation

News related to driverless cars is becoming increasingly popular in recent years, and these self-driving vehicles may be on the market as early as next year. Several large companies such as Google, Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Apple, Microsoft and many more, are investing in the driverless technologies that will soon provide us with our ground transportation, …

Is air traffic optimisation really that important?

Over the last 20 years the number of aircraft that are handled by airports has increased dramatically and continues to rise, according to ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization). Transportation with aircraft is becoming cheaper as low cost airlines become more popular. For the first time ever the total number of UK passengers passing through UK airport …

Spending time in industry during the PhD

Very often, successful achievements in industry benefit from extensive research work performed in universities – with whom industry can collaborate with on multiple levels, ranging from the sharing of knowledge to hosting complex, dedicated test rigs. Engagement between young researchers, with a fresh and comprehensive understanding of the underlying physics and mathematics involved in engineering …

INNOVATE and AVIO AERO: Bringing Industry and Academia Together

INNOVATE is a University of Nottingham European-funded doctoral training program that offers a researcher the opportunity to study for a PhD as well as spending a minimum period of six months in a company. Here INNOVATE Early Stage Researcher (ESR), Sara Roggia, talks about her role as part of the INNOVATE project and her secondment …

Image recognition on a UAV

Image recognition on a UAV As part of the Institute for Aerospace Technology’s INNOVATE project, the project team was tasked with the design and build of two fully autonomous UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, also known as Unmanned Aerial Systems). The UAVs are described and demonstrated in the March 2014 INNOVATE blog. Researcher Christofas Stergianos explains how one …

INNOVATE Anniversary – A year in a nutshell

The INNOVATE project reached yet another milestone on completion of its 1 year on 4th Nov 2014. In many aspects this was a memorable year for everyone involved in the project. For the management board, it was the satisfaction and pride of witnessing their vision take a formal shape in form of the ongoing development …

How Do Aeroplanes Stay Stable in the Sky?

Many years of testing and implementing advanced technologies have passed, but most people still wonder how an airplane flies despite air travel representing such a popular mode of transport in the 21st century. In 1895 Lord Kelvin stated that ‘heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible’. It is safe to say that he has been proved definitively …

INNOVATE Launch Event

After almost 6 months since the INNOVATE adventure began, it was finally time to launch the project. As each individual INNOVATE team member is aligned to an industrial partner, with which we will spend 6 months on an industrial placement, it was decided that a good way to launch the project would be to invite …

Who said that doing a PhD course is a completely individual study?

What kind of image appears in your mind when you think of a PhD student? I experienced the first 6 months of a PhD course in Italy before moving here to join the INNOVATE project (a multi-disciplinary team of 13 early career researchers studying for their PhD). When I was in Italy and I said …