Laboratories & Capabilities

AI Lab (DARTeC F105)
Lab Owner: Prof. Weisi Guo

Low TRL research on machine learning, focused on reinforcement learning, risk inference, deep feature explainability, complexity, energy efficiency, and social influence. AI Lab is part of the Research England £67m DARTeC building at Cranfield University. It operates several EPSRC grants and Marie Curie and RAEng fellowships. Contact myself for collaboration. [Link]

Human Machine Hybrid Autonomy Collaboration (HUMAX) Lab (AIRC G008)
Lab Owner: Dr. Yang Xing

Cross TRL research on human-in-loop hybrid autonomy for vehicles and air platforms. This is jointly funded by EPSRC TAS Security node, EPSRC Program Grant CASCADE, DSTL DASA, and Royal Society Equipment Grants. Contact myself or Dr. Yang Xing (head of lab) for access and collaboration.

Distributed and Causal Computing Lab (B83 F409)
Lab Owner: Prof. Weisi Guo

Funded across strategic EPSRC & TMF-uplift projects CHEDDAR and JOINER, we will be working with Bristol University and others to build a federated future communication capability that will connect to GNSS and NPL NTC national timing node atomic clock. Please contact myself to explore access and collaboration.

Air Traffic Management Lab (DARTeC)
Lab Owner: Prof. Antonios Tsourdos

The ATM lab examines critical AI research questions related to unmanned traffic management, human machine interfaces, cyber security, resilience, and regulatory frameworks. It aims to combine multi-physics simulation with secure networking and adversarial AI research to understand the future of distributed aerospace algorithms, funded by InnovateUK Future Flight, RAEng IC Fellow, and EU Horizon CESAR. Contact Prof. Antonios Tsourdos, myself, or Dr. Deepak Panda for more details.

National Timing Node (B83 iMEC 412)
Lab Owner: Dr. Ivan Petrunin

UK National facility to distribute atomic clock to smart city and autonomous platforms. One of Three Timing Nodes connected to National Physics Laboratory (NPL) UTC Greenwich to offer resilient terrestrial time and position distribution. The National Timing Centre and InnovateUK funds our facility. Contact myself or Dr. Ivan Petrunin (head of lab) for access and collaboration. [Link]

Multi-User Environment for Autonomous Vehicle Innovation (MUEVI) (B83 iMEC 412)
Lab Owner: Dr. Ivan Petrunin

Cross-centre capability that use sensors to monitor autonomous vehicle and drone interaction with pedestrian and smart city entities, including signal (GNSS, comms) propagation, and cooperative tasking. Contact myself or Dr. Ivan Petrunin or Prof. Antonios Tsourdos or Prof. James Brighton for access and collaboration. [Link]

Secure and Cooperative Drone Arena (B83 Drone Arena) 
Lab Owner: Dr. Dmitry Ignatyev

Funded across multiple EPSRC projects, we multiple programmable drones that can fly indoors using ViCon navigation and outside using Satellite and ground GNS. The drones can do cooperative control, secure communications, target surveillance, tracking, and overcome obstacles. Please contact Prof. Antonios Tsourdos or myself to explore access and collaboration.

Conflict Modeling and Prediction Engine

One of our social science research areas is the Global Urban Analytics for Resilient Defence (GUARD) project [Link]. This was created with Sir Alan Wilson in 2017 and went on to be operational in DSTL as an internal government dashboard. Please contact me for academic interest, and my DSTL liaisons for commercial/government interest.