Role
Pedro Machado received his MSc in Electrical and Computers Engineering from the University of Coimbra (2012) and his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Nottingham Trent University (2022).
Dr Machado is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science, Course Leader for MSc Artificial Intelligence and first secretary for the IEEE Systemic Innovation Special Interest Group (SISIG).
Dr Machado is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Course Leader for MSc Artificial Intelligence.
He is developing AI monitoring technologies to unlock the secrets of how underwater animals interact with their environment. The research is not just about watching fish swim; it is about using cutting-edge algorithms to understand their behaviour on a deeper level. Imagine being able to tell if a fish is feeling pain, predict disease outbreaks before they happen, or even gauge the overall health of a fish population. Dr Machado's research has the potential to revolutionise how we care for our oceans, freshwater and natural resources allowing the early-detection and preventing declines in fish and plant life before it's too late. It is a chance to ensure the well-being of aquatic animals and the sustainability of these vital ecosystems.
Research areas
Pedro is a member of the Computational Intelligent and Applications group.
Research interests:
Neuromorphic engineering, edge computer vision, bio-inspired computing, robotics and intelligent sensors, retinal cell understanding, biological nervous system modelling, spiking neural networks, robotics and autonomous systems, and neuromorphic hardware, aquaculture, endangered/invasive underwater species.
PhD supervision:
Miss Chloe Boulter (Director of Studies) - 2024 ~ Now
Mr Dennis Monari (Director of Studies) - 2023 ~ Now
Mr Feliciano Domingos (Director of Studies) - 2023 ~ Now
Mr James Edward Brereton (Supervisor) - 2024 ~ Now
Mr Jack Lewton (Supervisor) - 2024 ~ Now
Mr Joseph Origbo (Supervisor) - 2024 ~ Now
Mr Michael Gibbs (Supervisor) - 2022 ~ Now
PhD Vivas:
Ms. Faiza Guerrache (Internal Examiner) - 2024
Mr John Doherty (External Examiner - University of Ulster) - 2024
Mohammadreza Lalegani Dezaki (Chair) - 2024
Mr James Hall (Chair) - 2024
Mr Victor Okenyi (Chair) - 2024
Income Generation:
- SAMACT – Bionic Prosthetic Arm Funded by the DAIWA Foundation (£8000) (Principal Investigator) - [2025]
- 11x Postgraduate Scholarships for the MSc Artificial Intelligence conversion Course funded by the OfS (£110,000) (Principal Investigator) - [2024/2025]
- NeuroLiquidFilter: Advancing Bio-Inspired Filtering with Neuromorphic Intelligence Funded by the Intel Corporation (£20,000 in-kind contribution) (Principal Investigator) - [2024-2025]
- STEM 4.0: Advancing Technology Education through AI-Driven and Adaptive Learning, Funded by the British Council (£29,374) (Co-Investigator) - [2025 - 2026]
- SmartBerry: Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Strawberry Farming In Developing Countries. Funded by Innovate UK (£245,725), (Co-Investigator) - [2024 - 2026]
- To Create an Innovative AI Approach for Enhancing Data Quality through Data Augmentation in the Finance Sector. Funded by Innovate UK (£235,710), (Co-Investigator) - [2024 - 2027].
- 10x Postgraduate Scholarships for the MSc Artificial Intelligence conversion Course funded by the OfS (£100,000) (Principal Investigator) - [2023/2024]
- Field Companion project, Grant agreement 600359 funded by the InnovateUK (£214,714) (Principal Investigator) [2018-2021].
Active Projects:
- Centopeia cluster initiative [2025 - NOW]- Reimagining computing through sustainability! ♻️ We are aiming to use 100x more recycled computer nodes.
- SAMACT – Bionic Prosthetic Arm Funded by the DAIWA Foundation (£8000) (Principal Investigator) - [2025]
- NeuroLiquidFilter: Advancing Bio-Inspired Filtering with Neuromorphic Intelligence Funded by the Intel Corporation (£20,000 in-kind contribution) (Principal Investigator) - [2024-2025]
- TEM 4.0: Advancing Technology Education through AI-Driven and Adaptive Learning, Funded by the British Council (£29,374) (Co-Investigator) - [2025 - 2026]
- SmartBerry: Artificial Intelligence to Enhance Strawberry Farming In Developing Countries. Funded by Innovate UK (£245,725), (Co-Investigator) - [2024 - 2026]
- To Create an Innovative AI Approach for Enhancing Data Quality through Data Augmentation in the Finance Sector. Funded by Innovate UK (£235,710), (Co-Investigator) - [2024 - 2027].
Past projects:
AQUABRAIN (PI) [March 2024 - July 2024]
Internet of Water (IoW) (PI) [August 2022 - July 2023]
Underwater Plastic Detection (PI) [January 2022 ~ July 2022]
Teaching:
Pedro is the course leader of the MSc AI course and the Independent End Point Assessor for the L7 Degree Apprenticeship at the NTU.
Pedro is currently the Module Leader of:
- COMP20091: Systems Software.
- SOFT40051: Advanced Software Engineering.
- COMP40731: Artificial Cognitive Systems.
Pedro is currently teaching as Lab Tutor/Supervisor:
- COMP40321: Research Methods | COMP40311: Major Project
- COMP30151: Final Year project
Pedro's teaching experience includes:
- COMP30271: Cognitive Computing (2023-2024)
- SOFT37001: Advanced Analysis and Design (DTS) (2021-2023)
- SOFT27002: Software Engineering (DTS) (2021-2023)
- SOFT27001: Software Design and Implementation (DTS) (2021-2023)
- ISYS30221: Artificial Intelligence (2020 - 2021)
- SOFT20091: Software Design & Imp (2015 - 2021)
- COMP40321: Research Methods | COMP40311: Major Project (2015 - Now)
- COMP10082: Foundations of Comp & Tech (2018)
- COMP30151: Full Year project (2015 - Now)
- ITEC40091: Embedded Systems (2015 and 2016)
- SOFT20101: Info and Database Engineering (2015)
Publications
Journals:
FERREIRA, J.F., PORTUGAL, D., ANDRADA, M.E., MACHADO, P., ROCHA, R.P. and PEIXOTO, P., 2023. Sensing and artificial perception for robots in precision forestry: a survey.Robotics, 12 (5): 139. ISSN 2218-6581
MACHADO, P., FERREIRA, J.F., OIKONOMOU, A. and MCGINNITY, T.M., 2023. NeuroHSMD: neuromorphic hybrid spiking motion detector.ACM Transactions on Reconfigurable Technology and Systems, 16 (3): 36. ISSN 1936-7406
MURRAY-HILL, N., FONTES, L., MACHADO, P. and IHIANLE, I.K., 2023. Secure video streaming using dedicated hardware.Journal of Signal Processing Systems. ISSN 1939-8018
MAGALHÃES, S.C., SANTOS, F.N., MACHADO, P., MOREIRA, A.P. and DIAS, J., 2023. Benchmarking edge computing devices for grape bunches and trunks detection using accelerated object detection single shot multibox deep learning models.Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, 117 (Part A): 105604. ISSN 0952-1976
MACHADO, P., OIKONOMOU, A., FERREIRA, J.F. and MCGINNITY, T.M., 2021. HSMD: an object motion detection algorithm using a Hybrid Spiking Neural Network Architecture.IEEE Access. ISSN 2169-3536
YU, Z., MACHADO, P., ZAHID, A., ABDULGHANI, A.M., DASHTIPOUR, K., HEIDARI, H., IMRAN, M.A. and ABBASI, Q.H., 2020. Energy and performance trade-off optimization in heterogeneous computing via reinforcement learning.Electronics, 9 (11): 1812. ISSN 2079-9292
COSTALAGO-MERUELO, A., MACHADO, P., APPIAH, K., MUJIKA, A., LESKOVSKY, P., ALVAREZ, R., EPELDE, G. and MCGINNITY, T.M., 2018. Emulation of chemical stimulus triggered head movement in the C. elegans nematode. Neurocomputing. ISSN 0925-2312
See the full list in the DBLP database.