Projects per year
Personal profile
Research interests
Alan Hunter is a Professor in Autonomous Systems in the Department of Mechanical Engineering. His research interests are in underwater acoustics, signal processing, imaging, and machine intelligence. He is particularly interested in applications in underwater remote sensing using sonar and marine robotics.
Alan is a Senior Member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) and Associate Editor for the IEEE Journal of Oceanic Engineering.
Biography
Alan was born in New Zealand and studied at the University of Canterbury (NZ), obtaining a BE(Hons I) degree in electrical and electronic engineering in 2001 and a PhD on synthetic aperture sonar (SAS) in 2006. He left New Zealand for Europe in 2007.
For the next three years, Alan was a research associate at the University of Bristol, where he worked with ultrasonic arrays for non-destructively inspecting engineering components. Here, he developed auto-focusing algorithms for imaging the interiors of objects with complex geometries and material properties.
In 2010, he moved to the Netherlands and spent four years as a defence scientist at TNO (Netherlands Organisation for Applied Research) in The Hague. At TNO, he developed underwater technologies for the Royal Dutch Navy, including sub-sediment imaging sonar, diver detection sonar, and autonomous naval mine-hunting systems.
Before returning to England in 2014, Alan spent three months in La Spezia, Italy as a visiting scientist at the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation (CMRE). During this time, he developed precision micro-navigation algorithms for SAS imaging of the seafloor over repeated passes.
Research areas
Willing to supervise doctoral students
Interested in supervising students studying:
- Underwater acoustics
- Synthetic aperture sonar imaging of the seafloor
- Low-frequency broadband acoustic scattering
- Non-destructive inspection using ultrasonic arrays
- Marine robotics and autonomous systems
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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
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TESSMEX 2025-26 Extension
Hunter, A. (PI) & Rymansaib, Z. (Researcher)
14/11/25 → 30/09/27
Project: Central government, health and local authorities
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Towards a Field-Deployable System for In-Situ Measurements of Acoustic Target Echo Strength
Hunter, A. (PI) & Rymansaib, Z. (Researcher)
1/10/25 → 31/03/27
Project: Central government, health and local authorities
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Noise Network Plus: Engineering a Quieter Future
Hunter, A. (PI)
1/02/25 → 31/01/28
Project: Research council
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Sustainable, nature-inspired coastal protection for a changing climate
Blenkinsopp, C. (PI) & Hunter, A. (CoI)
19/08/24 → 18/08/27
Project: Research council
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Project AirTwin: AI Control, Weather Routing & Digital Twin Systems for Optimal Wind-Assisted Ship Performance
Sell, N. (PI), Bull, S. (CoI), Hunter, A. (CoI) & Şimşek, Ö. (CoI)
Innovate UK, Innovate UK Business Connect
1/09/25 → 31/03/26
Project: Central government, health and local authorities
Research output
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A hybrid physical-neural phantom of the urinary bladder incorporating the spinal pudenda-vesical reflex
Petrou, M., Hunter, A. J., Georgilas, I. & Metcalfe, B., 24 Apr 2026, In: Interface Focus. 15 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Design and Testing of a Minimal Configuration Underwater Micro-Glider: Automating Lake and Reservoir Monitoring
Rand, J. M., Hunter, A., Wain, D. & Bryant, L. D., 21 Jun 2026, (E-pub ahead of print) In: Journal of Field Robotics. 18 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access -
Adaptive Control of Wind Assisted Propulsion Systems
Sell, N., Wilson, D., Smith, T., Cannon, T. P., Elson, J., Bull, S., Hunter, A. & Simsek, O., 25 Nov 2025, OCEANS 2025 - Great Lakes, OCEANS 2025. U. S. A.: IEEE, (Oceans Conference Record (IEEE)).Research output: Chapter or section in a book/report/conference proceeding › Chapter in a published conference proceeding
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A diffusion-based super resolution model for enhancing sonar images
Bryan, O., Berthomier, T., D’Ales, B., Furfaro, T., Haines, T. S. F., Pailhas, Y. & Hunter, A. J., 23 Jan 2025, In: Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA). 157, 1, p. 509-518 10 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review
Open Access6 Link opens in a new tab Citations (SciVal) -
Automated Classification of Vocalisations from Wild and Captive Seal Populations
Butler, W., Smith, H., Lloyd, W., Impraimakis, M., Barnes, A. & Hunter, A. J., 20 Jun 2025.Research output: Contribution to conference › Paper
Datasets
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Sidescan sonar images for training automated recognition of submerged body-like objects
Rymansaib, Z. (Creator), Nga, Y. (Creator), Anthony Treloar, A. (Creator) & Hunter, A. (Creator), University of Bath, 30 Oct 2024
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-01467
Dataset
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Dataset for "Breaking Wave Imaging using Lidar and Sonar"
Blenkinsopp, C. (Creator), Hunter, A. (Creator), Bayle, P. (Creator) & Bryan, O. (Creator), University of Bath, 20 Mar 2019
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-00623
Dataset
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Dataset for "Parameter Reduction and Optimisation for Point Cloud and Occupancy Mapping Algorithms"
Miao, Y. (Creator), Hunter, A. (Creator) & Georgilas, I. (Creator), University of Bath, 14 Jun 2021
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-00594
Dataset
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Simulated Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Sonar (InSAS) Data of the SS Thistlegorm Wreck
Thomas, B. (Creator), Hunter, A. (Creator) & Brown, S. (Contributor), University of Bath, 10 May 2023
DOI: 10.15125/BATH-01219
Dataset