Ultrasound already touches almost every aspect of modern life, from medical scans and phone sensors to cleaning silicon chips during fabrication, but the UK faces a shortage of engineers who can push the technology further. This Centre for Doctoral Training combines the ultrasonic engineering groups at the Universities of Glasgow and Strathclyde into the largest academic ultrasonic engineering unit in the world. Working with more than 30 external organisations—from microcompanies to multinationals—it will systematically train a new generation of leaders in ultrasonics research, engineering, and product development. If successful, the centre will maintain the UK’s competitive advantage in a field that underpins 20% of medical scans, underwater sensing, non-destructive evaluation, semiconductor manufacturing, and emerging applications such as contactless touch feedback and power delivery to medical implants. The training happens within a world-class research environment, putting students at the global forefront of a discipline where new materials, smaller semiconductor circuits, autonomous systems, and machine learning are all converging.
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Ultrasonics, the science and technology of sound at frequencies above the audible range, has a huge range of applications in sensing and remote delivery of energy. In sensing, 20% of medical scans rely on ultrasonics for increasingly diverse procedures. Ultrasonics is pervasive in underwater sensing and communication and a key technology for non-destructive evaluation. Ultrasonic devices are essential components in every mobile phone and are being developed for enhanced biometric security. Ultrasound is also important in remote delivery of energy. In medical therapy, it is used to treat neural dysfunction and cancer. Many surgical tools are actuated with ultrasound. As the best way to clean surfaces and bond interconnects, ultrasound is pervasive in semiconductor and electronics fabrication; it is also being explored for power delivery to implants and to give a contactless sense of touch. Such a broad range of applications predicts an exciting future: new materials will emerge into applications; semiconductor circuits will deliver smaller, more convenient instrumentation systems; autonomy and robotics will call for better sensors; and data analysis will benefit from machine learning. To maintain competitive advantage in this dynamic and multidisciplinary topic, companies worldwide rely on ambitious, innovative engineers to provide their unique knowledge of ultrasonics. As a significant contribution to address this need, Medical & Industrial Ultrasonics at the University of Glasgow and the Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering at the University of Strathclyde will combine to form the Centre for Doctoral Training in Future Ultrasonic Engineering (FUSE), the largest academic ultrasonic engineering unit in the world. Working with more than 30 external organisations, from microcompanies to multinationals, this will, for the first time, enable systematic training of a new generation of leaders in ultrasonics research, engineering and product development. This training will take place in the world-class research environment provided by two of the UK's pre-eminent universities with its partners, creating a training and research powerhouse in ultrasonics that will attract the best students and put them at the global forefront of the field.
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