Research

Computing PhD Opportunity

Project Title: Enabling Technology for Autonomous Agents

Project Description:
The future internet environment is destined to become the software backbone of the Knowledge Economy. It will provide the infrastructure and platform for the enabling technology supporting future e-Business and e-Science systems. Central to this environment are 'software agents' - autonomous programs which service the needs of the end user, for example by information filtering, solving tasks in co-operation with other software agents, and rapidly assembling services to solve high level goals.. Building such a software infrastructure is one of the primary challenges for scientists engaged in creating the enabling technology for e-Science and grid architectures. Software agents are characterised by their autonomy, and their abilities to plan and learn. Agents must be able to reason with actions, events, time, resources etc, and assemble plans to achieve high level tasks. The aim of this project is to investigate the integration of current AI Planning technology with current Agent technology. This will involve studying current software platforms for creating autonomous agents and introducing AI planning features into them.

Skills and knowledge required for this project: Good programming skills, some understanding of AI especially automated planning and knowledge representation. This would suit undergraduates (1st, 2:1 or equivalent) in Computer Science or Software Engineering.

Entry requirements: The standard entry requirement for PhD study is a First or Upper Second class honours degree, or the overseas equivalent, in a relevant subject. In certain circumstances, a Lower Second class honours degree supplemented by a Masters degree, or appropriate relevant work experience, may be acceptable.

Course fees: Tuition Fees

Related website: Knowledge Engineering and Intelligent Interfaces Research Group

Academic department: Department of Informatics: Computing and Information Communication Technology (ICT)

Contact: Prof T L McCluskey
Email: t.l.mccluskey@hud.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)1484 472247

How to apply: http://www2.hud.ac.uk/research/gradcentre/applications/