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PhD opportunities: Acoustics

Compare 12 doctoral research opportunities connected with Acoustics, including project summaries, funding and application deadlines.

Acoustics

AI-Enabled Acoustic Emission System for Industrial Condition Monitoring (Ref: AAE-EZ-2512)

Loughborough University

About the Project This research project focuses on the development of an advanced AI-driven system specialised in interpreting Acoustic Emission (AE) data, which aims to facilitate real-time monitoring of critical industrial components, such as electric vehicle batteries and hydrogen fuel cells. AE sensors, operational within a frequency range of several MHz, have the capacity to capture stress waves emanating from materials undergoing deformation.

Location
Loughborough, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
30 September 2026
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

PhD Studentship - Modelling Dialogue Understandability in Media Using Listener Types and AI

University of Salford

About the Project UNIVERSITY OF SALFORD PhD Title: Modelling Dialogue Understandability in Media Using Listener Types and AI The studentship is with University of Salford and DTS (Xperi) Academic Supervisor: Dr Ben Shirley, b.g.shirley@salford.ac.uk Academic Co-Supervisor: Dr Rebecca Vos Industrial Supervisors: Dr Martin Walsh and Ted Laverty (Xperi) The studentship is fully funded and includes: • A fee waiver • A stipend of £22,852 PA for three and a half years • All bench…

Location
Salford, United Kingdom
Deadline
16 November 2026
Funding
UK Students; £22,852 per annum for three and a half years

Acoustics

Sports acoustics: Impact sound in cricket, golf, baseball and tennis

University of Southampton

About the Project Supervisory Team: Dr. Giacomo Squicciarini, prof. Tim Waters and Dr. Michal Kalkowski This project examines how impact sounds in cricket, golf, and tennis reveal the physics and performance quality of each strike. Through acoustic analysis, physics based models, and machine learning, it aims to reveal the information hidden in these acoustic signals.

Location
Southampton, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
31 December 2026
Funding
Competition Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Acoustics

AI-Driven Approaches to Real-Time Spatial Audio for Augmented Reality

University of York

About the Project The future of Augmented Reality (AR) will be shaped as much by sound as by visuals. For AR to feel truly immersive, virtual sound sources must blend seamlessly with the listener’s real acoustic environment, preserving naturalness, depth, and spatial coherence. Yet this remains a major challenge in immersive media research.

Location
York, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

Discovering New Physics in Near-Fields — ERC ATLANTIS Project

King’s College London

About the Project Two fully funded, 3.5 year PhD studentships will explore what happens when textbook assumptions about near-field waves are removed. The scientific challenge Near-fields --confined close to sources, interfaces and nanostructures-- can display three-dimensional polarisation, unexpected energy and momentum flows, topological textures, exact zeros, and unusual forces and torques.

Location
London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Funded PhD Project (Students Worldwide)

Acoustics

Full-duplex underwater acoustic systems

University of York

About the Project Acoustic signal transmission is the only feasible technology for long-range (>10-100m) underwater communication, navigation and sonar systems. The performance of such systems could be significantly improved if it was possible simultaneously transmit and receive signals in the same frequency band, which is called full-duplex (FD) operation. If implemented, the FD could directly double the capacity of communication systems.

Location
York, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

High data rate adaptive underwater acoustic networks

University of York

About the Project The ocean plays a key role in supporting all living organisms on our planet, yet the vast majority of the ocean remains unmapped and unobserved. Any activity underwater requires reliable communications, and the most feasible is the underwater communication exploiting acoustic waves. Unfortunately, modern underwater acoustic communication networks have relatively low throughput, while many practical applications require high data rates.

Location
York, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

High-frequency underwater acoustic communication for image transmission.

University of York

About the Project Communication using acoustic waves is the main underwater communication technology, since electro-magnetic waves quickly attenuate underwater. Most of existing underwater acoustic communication systems operate at frequencies 5 – 50 KHz propagating up to several kilometres in distance, albeit at low data rates, so the video transmission is not possible. The aim of this project is to use higher acoustic frequencies (e.g.

Location
York, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

Identification of Insect Species from Images or Sound Signals

Kingston University

About the Project Insects are vital members of the ecosystem, acting as vital pollinators for flowering plants, consumers of detritis, and in many cases keeping pests under control. However, some species – particularly ones non-native to a particular region – may have series detrimental effects by predating on native species or seriously damaging or destroying local plant life.

Location
London, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

Improving Defect Detection Reliability in Ultrasonic Testing through Artificial Intelligence

University of Strathclyde

About the Project About the Project Phased Array Ultrasonic Testing (PAUT) is a cornerstone of modern Non-Destructive Evaluation (NDE) across industries such as aerospace, energy, and automotive. By enabling electronic beam steering and focusing, PAUT brought improved inspection capability for complex geometries and is widely used for safety-critical components due to its flexibility, safety, and compatibility with automation.

Location
Glasgow, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
See advert

Acoustics

Machine learning in underwater acoustic communication modems

University of York

About the Project Machine learning is an approach that is useful when a practical optimisation problem is difficult to describe precisely. This approach has found multiple applications. Recently, the machine learning has been used in communication systems at the physical layer for designing the communication modems. The machine learning can improve the detection performance and, at the same time, reduce the modem complexity.

Location
York, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only

Acoustics

Sonars for precise underwater autonomous vehicle (AUV) navigation.

University of York

About the Project There is a great interest in underwater autonomous vehicles (AUVs) and currently many companies develop AUVs for multiple applications. Obviously, AUVs require accurate navigation. Underwater, radio waves cannot propagate, and therefore such navigation systems as GPS, widely available on the ground, cannot operate underwater. New navigation principles and new navigation systems are required to make AUVs useful in practice.

Location
York, United Kingdom, United Kingdom
Deadline
Year-round applications
Funding
Self-Funded PhD Students Only