Meet the Swarmchestrate partners: Edinburgh Napier University
The Edinburgh Napier University –taking its name from 16th century Scottish mathematician and philosopher John Napier– is a public university in Edinburgh, Scotland. With more than 300 undergraduate and postgraduate courses and nearly 20,000 students from over 140 countries, ENU is ranked #1 modern university in Scotland (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023), ranked in the top 10 UK modern universities (Times/Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023), and the top Scottish modern university for research power and impact (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
What is ENU role in the project?
ENU, in collaboration with the scientific coordinator of the project, University of Westminster, is the main initiator of the Swarmchestrate project and therefore holds an important role towards the overall research and development activities of this project -particularly in the design and development of the overall architecture, from the aspect of orchestration, swarm concept, and distributed intelligence.
Why is this project important for ENU?
This project is of particular importance to ENU and specifically for the School of Computing, Engineering and the Built Environment (SCEBE) mainly in two ways. Firstly, this project will provide the opportunity to showcase the impact of on-going research in realistic settings thus contributing to the next REF review. Secondly, the developments in this project about emerging concepts such as Cloud-to-Edge Continuum, Orchestration, Swarm computing, Blockchain, and Distributed Intelligence will inspire students and researchers towards these promising fields –something that is currently missing from ENU.
Who are the key people involved?
The ENU team for the Swarmchestrate project is led by Dr Amjad Ullah –who specialises in Cloud and Edge-based systems with an interest in orchestration, auto-scaling, and optimisation. Amjad is supported by Prof. Xiaodong Liu –who specialises in Pervasive Systems and Smart Cyber-physical systems– and Prof. Emma Hart –who specialises in Learning, Optimisation and Evolutionary Swarm robotics. The team is also in the process of recruiting a Post-doctoral researcher, who will be involved in the development activities.