£10,000 prize for Talking Underwater Robots
01 Sept 2011 
Many congratulations to our current PhD student, Simon Watson on winning the Leslie H Paddle Scholarship of £10,000. Simon started his research at the University of Manchester in September 2008 and the title of his thesis is “Mobile Platforms for Underwater Sensor Networks”. He is expected to complete this work in March 2012.
Simon Watson said: “The award of the IET scholarship is a great honour and will allow me to see my project through to its next stage of development. It will support me in terms of both my academic and professional development and also offers a unique opportunity to raise awareness of my research to the wider engineering community”.
Simon’s wireless robots help workers to monitor radioactive nuclear storage ponds where potentially lethal material is left to cool. They take measurements, such as temperature, radiation levels or actual pictures, engineers then use these to build up a number of 3D maps of the ponds which can identify problem areas such as where the protective shell of a fuel rod is damaged. The robots could greatly help to improve safety in nuclear power plants, such as the badly earthquake damaged Fukushima plant in Japan. The work is also an exploration of how underwater robots can be used to decommission old nuclear power stations.
IET Awards and Prizes Manager, Linda Deleay said: “IET scholarships are an endorsement of skill and hard work. I would like to congratulate each scholarship recipient for the contribution they have made, and will make, to improve the lives of those around us and the world in which we live.”