Archangel Aerospace Group

Lasting Impressions

I really enjoyed this internship; the company seemed very worthwhile. It has made me consider

going into education, especially workshops aimed at kids who might not otherwise get a good

and fun introduction to science. I also liked the writing aspect; I may try a little more science

writing!

MEng Engineering, Third Year Undergraduate (of a four-year course), a mixture of

in-person and remote working

Work Projects

When I was working for Archangel, I was mainly focused on a research project related to few shot learning for object detection in images. Specifically, I was testing the possibility of using few shot

learning techniques to develop a method of identifying key landmarks in aerial images from drones, that

could then be used for navigation and localisation of the drone. This was an area that Archangel had not

previously explored much, so I was mainly able to work on my own with minimal need for outside help.

However, I certainly felt that when I did need assistance, I was easily able to get it as I had regular one-

on-one meetings with a member of the company to ensure I had access to everything I needed.

The purpose of the research task was not primarily

to get a working prototype of the navigation system

working, but rather to assess the viability of the

system, which could then be developed more

formally if the techniques were found to be suitable.

I was able to produce a reasonably promising

method for landmark identification using only a few

images, and I was able to test these out successfully

on a number of datasets. With the research I was able to do, few shot object detection for this specific

case seems to be very viable, and a more comprehensive test bench would be capable of optimising the

process for deployment.

Daily Life

My internship at Archangel was a mix of in person and remote. I would generally go into the office once

or twice a week, but then be able to work remotely for the rest. As my project was largely solo research,

I was able to work remotely without feeling like I was limited by being unable to interact with other

members of the company in person. I felt that I was able to work effectively from home, especially when, later in my project, a lot of my time was spent waiting for experiments to run.

However, I found going into the office regularly to be very beneficial, as I got a much better sense of

what the company was about, and I was also able to chat with people about projects entirely unrelated

to what I was doing, which was very interesting. I was able to commute to the office, which was at the

Harwell Campus, quite easily by bus, and it generally was only a 40-minute commute from Oxford. I

found it very easy to settle in as the other members of the company were very friendly, and willing to talk. Outside of work, I had a number of friends who were also working/interning in Oxford over the

summer so was able to regularly socialise with them throughout the vacation.

Lasting Impressions

Overall, I found my internship at Archangel to be

extremely enjoyable, and I felt I gained a large

amount of experience in areas I had not previously

explored. I had not previously had much experience

working with neural networks, so I found it very

informative to have the opportunity to develop and

train convolution neural network solutions to a real-world problem. I really enjoyed the format

of the internship as it consisted mostly of research I could carry out independently. This meant I

was not heavily reliant on other members of the company and so I felt I was able to make

efficient use of my time throughout the duration of the internship, and was not regularly held

up. I enjoyed working in a smaller company, as I felt I had a great opportunity to talk to other people doing a variety of different research/development. I really enjoyed the internship

because I was able to tackle unique problems and was provided with sufficient resources to be

able to produce what I felt were viable and useful solutions for Archangel.