Energy efficiency is one of the primary design constraints for modern processing systems. Limited battery life and excessive internal power densities limit the number of transistors that can be active simultaneous in a silicon chip. Energy and power reduction in conventional computing is limited by the inability of modifying the architecture or adapting to changes in the fabrication process, temperature or application requirements after chip fabrication. When these changes are possible are limited by the need of "margining" that introduces safety margins so devices operate under worst conditions. Worst conditions are rarely the case an important energy and performance gains are possible if technology can adapt to the real conditions of operation. This research addresses this challenge by investigating energy proportional computing with a novel voltage, frequency and logic scaling triplet to adapt to changes in applications, fabrication or operating conditions. The results from this research are expected to deliver new fundamental insights to the question of: How future computers can obtain orders of magnitude higher performance with limited energy budgets?

In space imaging, enhanced image quality is key to the detection and characterisation of difficult and transient targets. For example, accurate evaluation of the sea surface conditions can help with the detection and characterisation of ship wakes. These provide key information for tracking (illegal) vessels and are also useful in classifying the characteristics of the wake generating vessel. Until recently, one of the main factors hampering research into sea surface modelling was the lack of sufficient data of high enough quality, able to accurately describe the sea surface. Remote-sensing technologies have however shown remarkable progress in recent years and the availability of remotely sensed data of the Earth and sea surface is continuously growing. Several European missions (e.g., the Italian COSMO/SkyMed or the German TerraSAR-X) have developed a new generation of satellites exploiting synthetic aperture radar (SAR) to provide spatial resolutions previously unavailable from space-borne remote sensing. The UK is currently developing the first of a constellation of four satellites that will constitute the NovaSAR mission. This represents a milestone for Earth-observation capabilities but also requires the development of novel image modelling, analysis, and processing techniques, able to cope with this new generation of data and to optimally exploit them for information-extraction purposes. Indeed, the mathematical modelling and understanding of wakes and other sea surface signatures can be greatly enhanced through image analysis and information extraction from SAR imagery. Hence, this project is concerned not only with the development and validation of new sea surface models, but also with the design of very advanced methods for enhancing SAR image quality and for subsequent information extraction. The results of this project will be important in the detection and tracking of illegal vessels involved in smuggling goods or humans. They will also be indicative in terms of understanding and classifying the characteristics of the wake generating vessel. As a consequence, the work will directly benefit the design of stealthy vessels that can avoid such detections, reducing the risk to naval operations.

The UK has a world class reputation for design and manufacture of space based technologies. A new National Space Academy has been launched this year to help boost the size and quality of the UK's science and engineering expertise. The proposal supports strongly The UK Space Directory, an organisation of eight groups representing and supporting the UK space community and including the Technology Strategy Board that state "the UK Space Industry has come together to propose an ambitious 20 year strategy to capture 10% of the global space market, £40 billion, by 2030 and in doing so create 100,000 UK jobs". The UK houses some of the leading companies in space applications such as; Inmarsat, Rolls Royce, Logica, Vega Space, Astrium, Qioptiq Space Technology and Surrey Satellite Technology Limited. The latter two companies strongly back the research detailed within this proposal and have both provided satements of support. This proposal seeks to offer an alternative PV technology for large area arrays and to be the first to report thin film cadmium telluride (CdTe) deposited directly onto toughened cerium-doped microsheet glass (CMG), explicitly targeting a significant increase in specific power by a step-change reduction of system weight. The Qioptiq Space Technology CMG microsheet glass is optimised to match the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of gallium arsenide (GaAs) based space solar cells. With the CdTe CTE almost identical to that of GaAs the choice of CMG is ideal for the prevention of delamination under the severe thermal gradients to which space PV is exposed. This adventurous approach, using the CMG as both the radiation barrier and substrate, will be proven by characterisation of 5 x 5 cm2 deposited devices and finally scaled to 10 x 20 cm2 on the Centre for Solar Energy Research (CSER) pilot metalorganic chemical vapour deposition (MOCVD) system. This proposal has the content and vision to make a significant contribution to the UK's flourishing space industry. Key to the success of the project will be the dissemination and pathways to impact of the research outcomes; this will be ensured through regular reporting to and feedback from a steering group of potential exploiters-Industrial experts and through targeted press releases. This proposal offers UK research the chance to impact the space PV market either through licencing of the arising IP and more excitingly in the current economic climate through manufacture of the final product.

The value of remanufacturing is estimated at £2.4B to the UK economy, potentially increasing to £5.6B in the near future. The entire process relies upon the timing, quantity and quality of the returned items (cores), and yet there have been no studies to-date that look at returns forecasting and how such forecasts can be integrated in a systemic way with inventory and production optimisation (IPO) procedures. Such procedures are stepping-stones towards financial, environmental and societal sustainability. If supported, this is the first study to look at these issues and therefore would make a considerable contribution to the theory and practice of remanufacturing in the UK. Our vision is to create a sustainable and resilient world where remanufacturers and their closed-loop supply networks have 'visibility' of product returns and reflect such information into circular economy (CE) compatible IPO to improve sustainability and resilience. In a remanufacturing context, the bill of materials loses its original meaning, and greatly depends on the state of the returned-used items. This introduces a need to forecast not only the timing and volume of the returns, but also their quality, in order to decide: i) what parts need to be replaced for the item to be restored to the desired state? ii) which usable parts can be fed back into the manufacturing process when restoring the item is not economically or practically viable? Rate of returns is expected to strongly correlate to the number of items in use and the stage in the item's life cycle. In-use product data, service information and judgmental inputs should also have explanatory power while time series effects, e.g. seasonality, may also be present. The above make the utilisation of classic demand forecasting methods impossible, calling for novel estimation approaches. Despite the obvious importance of returns forecasting in a CE context, the relevant literature is extremely limited. Further, the uncertainty associated with returns does not imply that the classic demand uncertainty for (re)manufactured products is not present, leading to what may be termed a 'two-tailed uncertainty'! Critically, the foregoing forecasting problems translate into systemic IPO challenges. A growing body of literature looks at inventory and/or production problems in closed-loop supply chains. Interestingly though, all these works are conditioned to no uncertainty with regard to returns and thus no need to forecast them, obviously diminishing the practical utility of these solutions. Integrating returns and demand forecasting with IPO requires a holonic approach, not previously attempted. A holon is an element that is both a whole in its own right but also part of a wider system - for example, in any organisation each department may establish its own strategic priorities but potentially they could act in conflict with each other if there is no general higher level organisation strategic direction to optimise their interactions. Hence, each different forecasting protocol, inventory controller and production ordering rule has its own dynamic properties but which, when integrated in different combinations, creates a new whole that may not be the simple addition of the different parts. Therefore, we will develop appropriate forecasting protocols and integrate them into IPO through systems modelling. Inventory and production optimisation in the CE are stepping-stones towards: i) immense inventory reductions and space liberation, resulting in reduced supply chain costs and cheaper, more affordable products in the market (financial sustainability); ii) reduced obsolescence risk for materials, parts and finished items, with huge implications for environmental sustainability; iii) greater availability of remanufactured products, creating a more ethical marketing channel to consumers (societal sustainability).

The main objective of the proposed research is to transfer to British Industry advanced technologies in making metal mirrors - both existing methods in which the University of Huddersfield has considerable experience, and improvements to be developed during the project. The idea of making mirrors out of metal goes right back to Sir Isaac Newton's reflecting telescope, which he built in 1668 as a way to overcome the colour fringe problem with the simple glass lenses available at that time. His chosen alloy - speculum - was hard and easy to polish, but tarnished quickly, and the ability to reflect light effectively, was not good by modern standards. Aluminium alloys have superseded Speculum, due to aluminium's availability at low cost in large sizes, and because of its superior reflection properties and durability. Whilst it expands and contracts much more than glass with changing temperature, it settles down much more quickly because it conducts heat very well. Moreover, you can drop it or shake it and it will not break! However, aluminium has a distinct disadvantage - it is soft and difficult to polish. For this reason, aluminium mirrors have normally been made in modest sizes by turning using a very high-precision lathe and diamond tools. Unfortunately, diamond-turning inevitably leaves characteristic features on surfaces, which make the mirrors not very good for imaging in 'visible' light. Instead, they are usually used in the more-tolerant infrared (e.g. for night-vision goggles). In metre sizes, aluminium mirrors have normally been machined traditionally, then nickel-plated, as this is easier to polish. But nickel has inferior reflection properties to aluminium, so back to square-1! Worse, the nickel expands differently from aluminium, and the whole mirror can distort with temperature changes. With that background, the project concerns two main avenues of investigation. The first tackles removing the features on diamond-turned mirrors, using computer-controlled polishing machines and robot platforms. The diamond turning will be performed using machines on-campus, with specialised diamond tools provided by the partner CFT Ltd. Then, polishing will proceed in Huddersfield's new laboratory at the STFC-Daresbury site, using highly specialised abrasive slurries from the partner company Kemet Ltd. The technology developed will be transferred to a defence company making optics, QioptiQ Ltd. The second avenue is to develop methods to make bare aluminium mirrors in metre sizes, as needed by partner TMF Ltd. The idea is then to position Kemet as a potential supplier, by transferring technology and so upgrading their lapping and polishing facility. In both cases, a key aspect missing from previous research is investigating the detailed interactions between process steps. The best surface in terms of the heights of errors, may not be best for polishing, because of how those errors are distributed over the surface. We believe the project will break new ground in considering this type of approach for both avenues above.