Ajay Kumar

Ajay Kumar is a Lecturer in Vehicle Mobility at Cranfield University, affiliated with the Weapons and Vehicle Systems Group in the Centre for Defence Engineering. He serves as course director for the MSc in Expeditionary Warfare Systems Engineering (delivered in the USA) and module leader for Military Vehicle Dynamics (taught in the UK and overseas).

His academic background includes:

• BEng in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pune, India (1999)
• MSc in Automotive Engineering from Coventry University (2007)

Dr. Kumar's research centers on vehicle dynamics, with emphasis on intelligent vehicles and off-road mobility. He investigates novel suspension systems and ride/handling characteristics, bridging automotive engineering and military vehicle technology through experimental and computational approaches.

Recent publications demonstrate expertise in unmanned ground vehicle mobility and AI trustworthiness. The 2024 study employs discrete element method to analyze scalability in tyre-soil interaction, while the 2021 work established frameworks for AI trust thresholds, reflecting interdisciplinary integration of robotics, computational mechanics, and defense applications.

His research is supported by the UK Ministry of Defence and QinetiQ. As part of the Weapons and Vehicle Systems Group, he contributes to defense engineering projects involving vehicle-terrain interaction and mobility assessment.