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Hushed excitement builds.....


It gives me great pleasure to announce that our 2019 winner is Michael Hutchinson Michael received his MEng degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Loughborough University, in  2015, and received his PhD degree in Autonomous Systems and Robotics at the same institution in 2019, under the supervision of Dr Cunjia Liu and Prof Wen-Hua Chen in the Autonomous Systems Laboratory of the Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering.


Michael’s doctoral thesis was focused on Bayesian estimation and informative path planning for inverse problems, with application towards autonomous unmanned aerial vehicle based emergency response to hazardous material (HAZMAT) situations. His thesis features several novel outcomes including examples of experimental results achieved for the first time.


Michael is currently a Robotics Engineer at Saga Robotics, working on the autonomy of the agricultural robot, Thorvald. Although not an academic position, he continues his research in robotics with very close collaboration between Saga Robotics and the University of Lincoln.


Michael says: I am delighted to receive this distinguished award. I thoroughly enjoyed my Ph.D. studies and the opportunities it offered. It is fantastic to receive recognition not just for my own hard work, but for the effort put in by my supervisors and collaborators at the Autonomous Systems Laboratory, Loughborough University and the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl).



Looking forward to seeing all the nominations for our 2020 competition!