[ecoop-info] Full Time Ph.D. Studentship in Safety Analysis for Autnomous Vehicles at University of Leicester

[M.R. Mousavi]

Full time Ph.D. Studentship in
Safety Analysis for Autnomous Vehicles

Department of Informatics,
University of Leicester, UK

Scope

=======

Establishing trust in autonomous vehicles is a major component of their
widespread public adoption. Rigorous and explainable safety analysis of
autonomous vehicle functions play a major role in establishing trust. There
are existing standards for establishing safety in automotive systems, of
which the ISO 26262 standard is the most prominent one. Safety case
analysis in these standards involves defining a safety item and analysing
and providing a safety case for the item by analysing the hazards in typical
scenarios of use and foreseeable misuse. To analyse the hazards rigorously,
different safety integrity levels (ASIL) are attached to them, and
different analysis techniques are prescribed for different ASIL. At high
ASIL, formal verification and model-based testing are recommended as
appropriate techniques for the analysis.

Hitherto, much of the safety case analysis process has been manual,
involving tedious scrutiny of possible scenarios and turning them into
appropriate models for further analysis. For autonomous vehicles, however,
such a manual process becomes extremely laborious and error-prone and
mechanisation support is inevitable. Also, in the presence of adaptive and
AI-enabled systems, adapting safety cases and their analysis should
inevitably be mechanised or otherwise will be infeasible. This project aims
at providing mechanised support for safety-case analysis of automated and
autonomous functions.

To this end, we will build upon our past experience with automated
test-case and scenario generation to turn structured English safety case
and item descriptions into rigorous models from which use and misuse
scenarios are
generated automatically.


About the Research Environment

===========================

At the University of Leicester, together our staff and students are
discovering innovative ways to change the world for the better and there
has never been a more exciting time for you to join us. We are ranked in
the top 1% of universities worldwide and have an international reputation
for excellence in teaching and research. We are led by discovery and
innovation, with the synergy between research and learning at the core of
our activity.

In this role you will research, design and implement techniques and tools
for testing and safety analysis of autnomous vehicle functions.

University of Leicester initiated a major investment on Data-Oriented
Software Engineering, through a number of permanent and fixed-term
positions, including the chair on Data-Oriented Software Engineering.  The
general goal of this research area is to come up with theories, techniques,
and tools that can deal with the complex contemporary data-intensive
systems. In particular, we focus on model-based and learning-based
techniques for dealing with cyber-physical systems in the automotive domain.

Funding

=========

This research project is one of a number of projects in the Department. It
is in competition for funding with one or more of these projects. Usually
the project which receives the best

applicant will be awarded the funding.

UK and EU Applicants

This project is eligible for a fully funded College of Science and
Engineering
studentship which includes :


- A full UK/EU fee waiver for 3.5 years
- An annual tax free stipend of £14,777 (2018/19)
-  Research Training Support Grant (RTSG)

International Applicants

This project is eligible for a fully funded College of Science and
Engineering studentship which includes :

- A full international fee waiver for 3.5 years
- Research Training Support Grant (RTSG)

More information

===============


Please see http://bit.ly/UoLPhDStundetship2018   for further information
about the position, the involved team and the instruction on how to apply.

Informal enquiries are welcome and should be made to Mohammad Mousavi
mm789 at le.ac.uk .

The closing date for this post is midnight on 21 January 2018.

Interviews will be carried out in the week commencing on February 18th and

offers will be made in the week commencing March 8th.

More information and instructions on how to apply can be found at the
following link:

http://bit.ly/UoLPhDStundetship2018