Posted: 7th October 2014

Dr Andrew Markham was recently awarded a grant of £200k after presenting a successful pitch to the EPSRC's "Big Pitch" in structural and ground engineering, one of only 4 awards made across the UK. The "Big Pitch" is a highly competitive dragon's den style panel and awards are made to individual researchers with an adventurous idea. They support research projects that have the potential to profoundly impact and transform a broad area of research.

The ambitious "MiSixthSense" project seeks to develop a low-cost, wireless, embeddable sensing technology that can measure structural deformations in 3-D from deep within a structure, its foundations and surrounding ground, that are small enough to add to the concrete mix or injected into rock. Not only can each sensor measure changes in its position, it can also measure changes in orientation, yielding a full six degree of freedom sensor. Key to this is the use of low frequency magnetic fields that are able to penetrate rock, soil, concrete and water with minimal loss of signal, a marked advantage over current wireless technology based on high frequency radio that cannot penetrate even a few cm of concrete. More details can be found here.

Dr Markham is recruiting a postdoctoral research associate to join the project. For more information and to apply, please see here .