Hi community,

I am writing to look for advice.

I am five month into my PhD program, and am currently doing literature review. I have recently found a study that has already done that we intended to do. My goal was to develop a mobile phone based system for road assessment; however, I came across a study that has done exactly what I intended to do and they have achieved a significant job as several road agencies are starting to use their system.

I believe there is still some research need to be done even though other people have developed a good system. however, I don't see how to make my research novel, and I might be addressing issues that people have already addressed. Papers may get knocked back because of lack of novelty

What should I do?