Dr Alison Griffiths

Associate Professor

Digital, Tech, Innovation & Business

Associate Professor Alison L Griffiths has been researching, lecturing and supervising students (PhD/MSc/BEng) since 2002 at Staffordshire University on Engineering and Computing courses at both under-graduate and post-graduate levels, in face-to-face and distance learning modes of study.

She spent the first 8 years of her career in the Electrical Industry at GE GRID (ALSTOM T&D Protection & Control as was).

She achieved her PhD in 2004 in wireless and mobile communications, became a Chartered Engineer (CEng) in 2006 and a Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy (SFHEA) in 2019.

She is an extremely active STEM Ambassador, promoting engineering within schools, colleges and at University at many events and competitions. She runs sessions with Micro:Bits, Arduinos, Raspberry Pis and Spheros.

Professional memberships and activities

  • Jan 2019 - present Awarded SFHEA Advance HE
  • Nov 2016-present WISE Member
  • Jan 2010-present IET Academic Partnership Liaison, University Event Organiser
  • Jan 2008 - present STEM Ambassador
  • Jan 2006 Awarded Chartered Engineer Status from UK Engineering Council, CEng
  • April 2005 - present Committee Member IET North West Midlands Branch
  • Oct 2006 - Oct 2008 Chair IET North West Midlands Branch
  • July 1997-present Member of The Institute of Engineering & Technology, MIET

Academic qualifications

SFHEAAdvance HE2019 Senior Fellow of the Higher Education AcademyCEng Royal Society of Engineering2006Chartered EngineerDoctor of Philosophy (Ph.D)Staffordshire University2003Mobile Communication Systems funded by (EPSRC) Grant: GR/M62457/01M.Eng/B.Eng(Hons) (1st Class) Staffordshire University 1998Electronics and Electrical EngineeringBTEC HNC Staffordshire University 1995Electrical/Electronic Engineering, (six distinctions, four merits and one pass) BTEC ONCStafford College 1993 Electrical/Electronic Engineering (five distinctions and six merits)GCSE Alleyne’s High School 1989 9 subjects grades A-C

Expertise

  • Electrical, Electronics, Telecommunications and Engineering Solutions.
  • Smart Grids and their Protection and Renewable integration, Smart Homes
  • Wireless Sensor Network design, implementation & optimisation.
  • Including Wireless control of robots over Mobile Adhoc Networks (MANETs) in congested conditions including Quality of Service (QoS)
  • Digital Signal Processing with a special interest in Voice and Image Processing Compression Techniques
  • Mobile computer and communications networks including Cellular, Personal and AD-Hoc Networks; Routing and user mobility issues (handover)
  • Programming and simulation tools: OPAL-RT, MATLAB, LABVIEW, OPNET, QUALNET

Research interests

My research area includes smart grids and renewable integration including their associated protection equipment, communication protocols and security, wireless sensor networks, communications and signal/image processing. I have successfully supervised 9 PhD students to completion, who now all work in Academia and Industry both nationally and internationally. I am internal and external examiner in MPhil/PhD VIVAs.

Current PhD Supervisions2Smart Real-time monitoring optimisation for a heterogeneous Wireless Body Area Network1Real-time HVDC transmission protectionSuccessful PhD Completions9 Nov 2018Pre- and Post-Processing for Image Compression Enhancement8Nov 2018Design an Intelligent Monitoring and Control (IMC) unit to implement intelligent monitoring and self-healing control for the smart grid7 Feb 2018DC Line Protection for Multi-terminal HVDC Transmission Systems,6Aug 2017Application-Aware Feature Utilisation for Optimised Sensing Node Characterisation within Resource Constrained Visual Sensor Networks5Sept 2016Fault Diagnosis and Tolerant Control of Modular Multi-level Converters in HVDC Networks4Oct 2015Optimization of Real-Time Network Control Systems over Mobile Ad Hoc-Networks3July 2010Closed loop control over Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET)2July 2009Development of a Delay Algorithm and a Co-Simulation Framework for NCS over MANETs1July 2009 Investigation of layered Multi-Agent Architecture for managing the delivery of mobile content.

Enterprise and commercial interests

  • GE Collaboration
  • Engineering Consultancy and short courses
  • ALSR consultancy
  • JCB Sellafield collaborative work/consultancy
  • Smallpiece Trust Summer Workshop
  • Cribgoch Consultancy
  • Hillary Lister Consultancy

Teaching

Course Leader

  • MSc Electrical Engineering with Renewable Energy Systems
  • MSc Electronic and Communication Engineering
  • MSc Robotics and Smart Technologies

Post-Graduate

  • ELEC71030 Smart Grids: Intelligent Networked Power Engineering
  • ELEC71070 Wireless Communications And Networking
  • ELEC70309 Voice & Data over Broadband Networks (Post-Grad)
  • ELEC70272 Telecommunications (Post-Grad)
  • ELEC70312 MSc Project (Post-Grad) – created facebook group, dropbox and YouTube video tutorial

Under-Graduate - Distance Learning (DL) or Work Based Learning (WBL)

  • ELEC50218 Digital Design and Embedded Software 1 delivered at ECAM, France and Staffordshire University
  • ELEC50401 Signals, Systems and Embedded Software I
  • ELEC50302 Communications (DL) – developed video lectures
  • ELEC50306 Signal Processing (DL) – developed video lectures
  • ELEC60303 Data Communication Systems (DL) developed video lectures

Under-Graduate – Face to Face, F2F

  • ELEC50224 Signals, Systems and Communications – developed video lectures
  • ELEC50401 Signals, Systems and Embedded Software I
  • ELEC50218 Digital Design and Embedded Software 1
  • ELEC61051 Wireless Communication Engineering Applications – Developed Video Lectures
  • ELEC60220 Digital Communications: Processing and Applications – developed video lectures
  • MECH60714 Engineering Project – created facebook group, dropbox and YouTube video tutorial
  • MECH60732 Final Work Based Project (DL)

Publications

Selected Publications (some publications available online)

A full list of my 46 published works can be found on the following researcher databases:

Journal Publications

YearS1#Paper detailsImpact factor201914A. M. Khalili, Abdel-Hamid Soliman, Md Asaduzzaman, Alison Griffiths, 'Wi-Fi Sensing: Applications and Challenges' preprint 201813Ikhide, M, Tennakoon, S, Ha, H, Griffiths, A, Subramanian, S & Adamczyk, A 2018, 'A transient and non-unit-based protection technique for DC grids based on the rate-of-change (R-o-C) of the fault induced travelling wave components' Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks. 0.76912Monday Ikhide, Sarath B. Tennakoon, Alison L. Griffiths, Hengxu Ha, Sankara Subramanian, Andrzej J. Adamczyk “A novel time domain protection technique for multi-terminal HVDC networks utilising travelling wave energy”, Elsevier, Sustainable Energy, Grids and Networks, Volume 16, December 2018, Pages 300-314 0.76911Monday Ikhide, Sarath Tennakoon, Alison Griffiths, Hengxu Ha, Sankara Subramanian, Andrzej Adamczyk “Transient-based protection technique for future DC grids utilising travelling wave power”, IET The Journal of Engineering, Volume 2018, Issue 15, October 2018, p. 1267 – 1273, DOI: 10.1049/joe.2018.0186 , Online ISSN 2051-3305 201610A. Amjad, A. Griffiths and M. Patwary, 'QoI-Aware Unified Framework for Node Classification and Self-Reconfiguration within Heterogeneous Visual Sensor Networks” IEEE Access Journal, Vol. 4, pp:9027-9042, DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2635941 1.279A Amjad, M Patwary, A L Griffiths and A-H Soliman 'Characterization of Field-of-View for Energy Efficient Application-Aware Visual Sensor Networks' IEEE Sensors Journal, Vol. 16, Issue. 9, pp: 3109 - 3122 2016 (IF: 1.889) 1.8898M Abdelsalam, M Marei, S Tennakoon and A L Griffiths, 'Capacitor Voltage Balancing Strategy Based on Sub-module Capacitor Voltage Estimation for Modular Multilevel Converters.' CSEE Journal of Power and Energy Systems, no. 1 (2016): 83-89 2015 20157O E Egaji, A L Griffiths, M S Hasan. and H Yu, 'A Comparison of Mamdani and Sugeno Fuzzy Based Packet Scheduler for MANET with a Realistic Wireless Propagation Model', IEEE International Journal of Automation and Computing (IJAC). Vol. 12, Issue 1. pp. 1-12, 2015 20136O E Egaji, A L Griffiths, M S Hasan and H Yu, 'Fuzzy logic based packet scheduling algorithm for Mobile ad-hoc Network with a realistic propagation model', International Journal of Automation and Computing (IJAC), 2013 5J M M Kamal, M S Hasan, A L Griffiths, and H Yu., 'Development and Verification of Simulation Model Based on Real MANET Experiments for Transport Layer Protocols (UDP and TCP),' International Journal of Automation and Computing, vol. 10, no. 1, pp. 53-63, 2013 20124A Amjad, A L Griffiths, and M P Patwary, “Multiple face detection algorithm using colour skin modelling”, IET Image Processing, vol. 6, pp. 1093–1101(8), November 2012 0.75320093M S Hasan, H Yu, A L Carrington, T C Yang “Co-simulation of wireless networked control systems over mobile ad hoc network using SIMULINK and OPNET”, IET communications 2009, Volume 3, issue 8 pp. 1297-1310. (IF: 0.742) 0.74220052M S Hasan, C Harding, H Yu, and A L Griffiths, 'Modelling delay and packet drop in Networked Control Systems using Network Simulator NS2', International Journal of Automation and Computing (IJAC), vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 187-194, 2005. 20011A L Heath, Carrasco R., “Simulation of Access For 3G IP WCDMA to Fixed Packet Switched Networks using OPNETTM”, IEE Electronics Letters, volume: 37 number: 11, 24 May 2001. 0.93

Selected conference / workshop publications

YearS1#Paper details201931Ikhide, M, Tennakoon, S, Ha, H, Griffiths, A, Subramanian, S & Adamczyk, A 2018,'A Back-up protection strategy for future DC grids utilising travelling wave energy', The 15th IET international conference on AC and DC Power Transmission, ACDC 2019, 5-7 Feb 2019201830Muhammad Majid Ali, A L Griffiths “Study of Brain Signal Extraction, Processing and Implementation”, IEEE Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Automation & Computing, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, 6-7 September 201829M Ikhide, S Tennakoon, A L Griffiths, S Subramanian and H Ha 'A transient based protection technique for future DC grids utilising travelling wave power” 14th IET International Conference on Development in Power System Protection (DPSP), March 2018201728A. Amjad, M. Patwary and A. Griffiths, 'Energy Efficient Self-Reconfiguration Scheme for Visual Information based M2M Communication,' Submitted to 2017 IEEE 85th Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC Spring), Sydney, 2017201627M Ikhide, S Tennakoon, A L Griffiths, S Subramanian and H Ha “Limitations of di/dt Techniques in DC Line protection” 13th IET International Conference on Development in Power System Protection (DPSP), March 201626M Abdelsalam, H Y Diab, S Tennakoon, A L Griffiths and M I Marei, “Detection and Diagnosis of Sub-Module Faults for Modular Multilevel Converters” In Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), September 2016 51st International Universities. IEEE. Portugal25Abdelsalam, M., Diab, H., Tennakoon, S. and Griffiths, A., 2016, September. 'Reliability enhancement of modular multilevel converter by applying fault tolerant control.' In Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), 2016 51st International Universities (pp. 1-5). IEEE24Abdelsalam, M., Tennakoon, S.B., Griffiths, A.L. and Marei, M.I., 2016. 'A smart fault detection and localization strategy of modular multi-level converters for HVDC networks' 5th IET International Conference on Renewable Power Generation (RPG) 2016201523Abdelsalam, M., Tennakoon, S., Griffiths, A.L. and Marei, M., 2015, September. 'Investigation of sub-module fault types of modular multi-level converters in HVDC networks.' In Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), 2015 50th International Universities (pp. 1-6). IEEE22M Ikhide; S Tennakoon; A L Griffiths; S Subramanian; H Ha “Fault detection in Multi-Terminal Modular Multilevel Converter (MMC) based High Voltage DC (HVDC) transmission system” IEEE Power Engineering Conference (UPEC), 2015 50th International Universities, pp: 1 - 6, September 2015201321O E Egaji, A L Griffiths, M S Hasan, H Yu., “Development of a realistic simulation model for IEEE 802.11n based on Experimental Result,” 7th International Conference on Software, Knowledge, Information Management and Applications (SKIMA 2013), 201320O E Egaji., A L Griffiths, M S Hasan. and H Yu ,'Fuzzy logic based packet scheduling algorithm for Mobile ad-hoc Network with a realistic propagation model' 19th International Conference on Automation and Computing (ICAC 2013), Birmingham, UK, (ICAC 2013

in the UK for Quality Education

Sustainable Development Goal 4, Times Higher Education Impact Rankings 2024

for Career Prospects

Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023

for Facilities

Whatuni Student Choice Awards 2023

for Social Inclusion

The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023

of Research Impact is ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Very Considerable’

Research Excellence Framework 2021

of Research is “Internationally Excellent” or “World Leading”

Research Excellence Framework 2021

Four Star Rating

QS Star Ratings 2021