Skip to main content

Engineering

Dr Ajit Pillai

Dr Ajit Pillai

Senior Lecturer
Engineering

Ajit’s research is focused on the development and deployment of optimization algorithms to aid in the design of offshore renewable energy devices and arrays. From 2021 he is a Royal Academy of Engineering Research Fellow developing new techniques to integrate numerical physics-based models with targeted, dynamic measurement campaigns using autonomous vessels to reduce offshore uncertainty and develop a new framework for spatial data.

While at the University of Exeter he has worked on several projects applying optimization and machine learning techniques including:

Prior to joining the University of Exeter, Ajit obtained an EngD in offshore renewable energy through the Industrial Doctoral Centre for Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE); a partnership between the Universities of Edinburgh, Exeter, and Strathclyde with the Scottish Association for Marine Science, HR-Wallingford, the ETI, and the EPSRC. His EngD research, completed in partnership with EDF Energy R&D UK Centre, led to the development of a methodology and tool for the optimization of offshore wind farm layouts considering the sites and constraints relevant for future gigawatt scale wind farms in European waters.

Ajit also holds an MSc in Sustainable Energy Systems from The University of Edinburgh and a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Columbia University.

View full profile