The aim of this Initial Training Network is to train a new generation of interdisciplinary researchers in sparse representations and compressed sensing, contributing to Europe’s leading role in scientific innovation.

The integration of a greater proportion of renewable energy, compounded by the rise in small scale distributed generation, is making it increasingly difficult to balance demand and supply of electricity without adequate energy storage facilities. However, the effective deployment of these solutions at any particular location will require an understanding of the local energy system at the time. Conversion between energy vectors will also be required not just to meet storage needs, but also to allow major shifts from fossil fuels to low carbon energy in applications like heat and transport. Hydrogen is an energy vector that is particularly versatile from this viewpoint. 

Particle shape has important effects on bulk materials as sandpiles and mixtures; temporal changes of the shape (e.g. due to surface abrasion) also have severe consequences in many industrial sectors. To represent irregular particles, a compact “irregularity function” can be stored for each particle which describes how the shape deviates from a bounding sphere. Abrasion can be studied by adopting irregularity functions which can change with time depending on contact force.

This research is carried out under the Unversity Defence Research Collaboration (UDRC) funded by the MOD and EPSRC.

The UDRC is a collaborative research project with the work being carried out by two Consortia. Edinburgh Consortium is made of the University of Edinburgh, Heriot-Watt University and The Queen's University of Belfast. LSSCN Consortium is made up of Loughborough University, University of Surrey, University of Strathclyde, Cardiff University and Newcastle University.