Tony Peyton is making a difference
13 Mar 2014
I use electromagnetics to improve people’s lives
I am a Professor in Manchester’s School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering. I am part of a team which investigates ways to use electromagnetics to see inside things for inspection purposes. This may be the microstructure of a steel component, the quality of food, detecting whether a person is carrying a hidden weapon or just a mobile phone, or detecting buried objects.Although we inspect a wide variety of different objects in different applications, it normally involves formulating a mathematical model to describe the signals we receive.
I’m lucky enough to have good connections with many companies, charities and organisations who we partner with to provide technological solutions to a range of real-world problems. A recent example I am most proud of is the ‘Find A Better Way’ charity founded by Manchester United and England legend Sir Bobby Charlton. This charity is dedicated to providing practical, humanitarian solutions to the global problem of landmines. Our team that’s working with this charity to find a quicker and safer solution to the problem of detecting landmines in war torn countries across the world. It is early days but we have already identified that we can use the technology developed and tested in Manchester to find a solution to the huge amount of time wasted detecting metal objects other than landmines by humanitarian clearance teams. Saving this time will ultimately save lives, as greater time can be dedicated to focusing on the challenge of clearing parts of the world of these devastating weapons.
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