One year enterprise-led funded Masters by Research, Ref. No. LU-094

Details:

• Get paid £16,000 tax-free
• Have your tuition fees reduced. Your partner company pays £2,200 towards your fees, meaning students eligible for home fees pay only £2,300. International students will need to pay the remaining £20,050.
• Be part of the multi award-winning Centre for Global Eco-Innovation within a cohort of talented graduates working on exciting business-led R&D.
• The Centre is based at Lancaster University, so you will gain your Masters from a highly-ranked university, recognised as The Sunday Times University of the Year 2018 and International University of the Year 2020.
• Finish in a strong position to enter a competitive job market in the UK and overseas or progress on to further study.

Start: January 2021

Deadline: Midnight Sunday 14th November 2021

This project is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund.

The Challenge

Design and development of a modular powerbank that offers rapid mobile device charging

Mobile consumer device charging has become a much sought after commodity, allowing the freedom of extending mobile device use beyond the boundaries of the internal battery alone. Whilst kinetic recharging devices do exist, they typically require significant operation time for a modest amount of charge regeneration.

Koitech Global Ltd, a company which specialises in creating practical solutions to energy consumption in battery-operated consumer and mobile devices, aims to develop an extremely fast-charging modular power bank system that has major environmental benefits over traditionally used Li-ion (Lithium-ion) batteries.

The successful applicant will work alongside industry and academic partners to provide engineering expertise to further develop this innovation from concept through to operational prototype. Initial testing has been conducted and a patent is now pending on this product. This is exciting opportunity to work on new product development R&D with an innovative company, whilst gaining a Masters qualification.

This research will include product design, efficiency calculations and simulations and the development and testing of a product prototype. You will benefit from academic expertise from the Lancaster University Engineering Department, as well as from Koitech Global Ltd who can provide essential knowledge on battery charging and electronics design.

Application Criteria

In order to be considered for this interesting and challenging research opportunity, applicants should have a first class or upper second class degree in engineering, physics or a related subject.

Enterprise and collaborative partners

This Masters by Research is a collaborative research project between Lancaster University, and Koitech Global Ltd. Koitech Global, based in Burnley, Lancashire was founded to create practical solutions to an ever-increasing demand for energy consumption in battery-operated consumer and mobile devices. Energy harvesting is the process by which energy is derived from external sources, captured, converted, stored, and subsequently used to power or charge electronic devices. The successful candidate will be supervised by Jenny Roberts – Lecturer from Lancaster University School of Engineering and Professor Allan Rennie – Professor in Manufacturing Engineering & Director of Lancaster Product Development Unit.