The post advertised is for a Research Fellow in Millimetre Wave Radar in the Millimetre Wave and EPR Group within the School of Physics & Astronomy. The position is available from 1st June 2016, or as soon as possible thereafter and will last for two years.

The post is funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) through their Challenge Led Applied Systems Programme (CLASP) funding scheme under its recent Security call. CLASP is intended to support the de-risking of the R&D process for industry through the development of technology demonstrators and industry-ready prototype systems (moving STFC research outputs from TRL 3 to 5 approximately). The project is in collaboration with our industrial project partner BAE Systems Applied Intelligence Laboratories and is supported a group of government, commercial & industrial end-user stakeholders.

The project, led by Dr Duncan Robertson, aims to develop and demonstrate millimetre wave radar sensor technology capable of the effective and affordable detection of intrusion into controlled spaces by small UAVs (SUAVs), a.k.a. ‘drones’ . The proliferation of SUAVs has unfortunately led to an increase in the incidence of snooping and intrusion into controlled spaces thus there is a requirement to be able to detect them. However, this need is currently not adequately met by conventional sensors. Radar is a good technique as it has the potential to detect the characteristic micro-Doppler signatures of the rotors but microwave radars struggle to detect SUAVs due to their low radar cross section (RCS) and relatively slow speed. However, SUAVs are likely to present a higher RCS to millimetre wave radars which also have greater Doppler sensitivity. Future commercialisation of the radar technology will lead to a low-cost short-range SUAV detector which will meet a significant market requirement.

Applicants should have substantial experience in radar (hardware and signal processing) and be capable of working independently and as part of a team. The project will cover radar topics in RCS measurement & analysis, micro-Doppler signatures, detection & tracking, and basic classification techniques.

Potential applicants are welcome to make informal enquiries to Dr Duncan A. Robertson, email dar@st-and.ac.uk or telephone 01334 467307. http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~mmwave.

Applications are particularly welcome from women who are under-represented in Science posts at the University.   The University of St Andrews is committed to promoting equality of opportunity for all, which is further demonstrated through its working on the Gender and Race Equality Charters and being awarded the Athena SWAN award for women in science, HR Excellence in Research Award and the LGBT Charter;  http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/hr/edi/diversityawards/.
 
Please quote ref:  AR1780ML

Closing Date:  9 May 2016

Further Particulars: AR1780ML FPs.doc

School of Physics & Astronomy
Salary:  £31,656 - £34,576 per annum
Start Date:  1 June 2016, or as soon as possible thereafter
Fixed Term:  24 months