PhD Research
I have recently completed my PhD research as part of the Water Informatics: Science and Engineering (WISE) EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training. My research was based at the University of Exeter within the Centre for Water Systems.
Thesis title: Flow Timeseries Forecasting in Urban Drainage Networks using Artificial Neural Network models.
Supervisors: Prof Slobodan Djordjevic, Prof David Butler, Dr Ole Mark.
The problem...
Rapid urbanisation and changing climates are overwhelming our drainage networks. Treatment plants can alter their operation for high flows, but need advanced warning of flows and pollutant loads. Traditional physics based models are too slow to respond, so we need to develop a fast and accurate surrogate.
The solution?
Artificial Neural Networks are data-driven machine learning models that, whilst slow to train, are exceptionally fast to deploy. They can be trained on measured or synthetic data, using powerful open source tools. An accurate ANN that keeps training whilst it’s used, and can be run multiple times to provide a range of forecasts, would be the perfect surrogate.
Research objectives:
- Train and evaluate a range of ANNs as surrogates
- Develop ensemble methods to ascertain forecast uncertainty
- Deploy the ANNs such that they can keep learning “on-the-job”
- Implement the ANNs within a Model Predictive Control framework
- Utilise the novel MPC strategy within a real world drainage system
WISE CDT
The EPSRC's WISE CDT specialises in interdisciplinary research within the water sector, bringing together high power computing and cutting edge water research.
GW4 WSA
With 200+ members from the Great Western 4 leading research universities, the Water Security Alliance is the UKs largest water research consortium.
External links
Links and resources related to my research:
- WISE CDT researcher profile
- LinkedIn profile: Ari Cooper-Davis
- ORCID id: 0000-0003-2361-8869