Openings for PhD students

 

Information

In The Netherlands, almost all PhD positions are linked to funded research projects. This has several implications:

• PhD students are employed: they receive a salary rather than a grant. Most projects have a duration of 4 years.
• Positions become available once a project is funded. This can happen at any time during the year.
• It typically takes 6 to 9 months for a project proposal to receive funding. In this period, a position may be anticipated but the outcome remains insecure. Once a project is funded, the open position needs to be filled as soon as possible.

If you are interested in our research, it merits to inquire whether openings will be available. We collect resumes of prospective PhD students throughout the year, for each of our research tracks.

Requirements

We make our selection based on the following requirements:

• Formal requirements regarding prior education: you should have earned an MSc thesis at a recognized institute for higher education.
• Background: you should have a strong background in signal processing, communications or systems theory, and be proficient in linear algebra and mathematics
• Excellence: your Grade-Point-Average should be above 8 (10). Also your MSc thesis should have received a grade above 8 (10).
• English: you should be able to communicate well in english (written and oral). Provide TOEFL/IELTS scores if available.
• Originality: your MSc thesis or later work (publications) should reflect some original ideas. Critical and independent thinking is very important.
• Team player: you should be able to work well in a team of other project members.

Your resume should contain contact information of prior advisors/supervisors who can provide feedback.

Currently open positions

(We may have some unadvertized openings...)

Recently filled positions

1. Distributed Signal Processing for Self-Organizing Wireless Networks [STW funded]

   A major problem in tomorrow's communications networks is the explosion of the number of devices. Preferably this connectivity is provided in a wireless fashion, but current wireless standards are not adequate to organize such large networks. The main reason is that they reserve a fixed amount of radio resources to the different devices, even if they are not in use, which results in a radio spectrum scarcity. Hence, the network gets saturated if too many nodes want to participate. Similar wireless connectivity problems appear in large sensor networks, where in addition information processing and localization become very problematic due to the large amount of sensors.

   The key to solve these problems is a paradigm shift towards self-organizing networks, where only local communication is allowed and each node adapts its procedures (related to spectrum utilization, sensing, information processing, and localization) based on information received from neighboring nodes and own observations. Instead of getting saturated by a large number of nodes, such networks benefit from a growing number of devices.

   To develop large self-organizing networks we need cognitive radio devices that are capable of sensing the radio spectrum and adapt accordingly. We further require energyefficient distributed information processing and localization algorithms for large sensor networks. The mathematical tools we want to build on are compressed sampling, convex optimization, game theory, and linear algebra.

   The proposed research will lead not only to new insights in self-organization, but also to novel algorithms and communications technology. It will result in a flexible, selforganizing, energy-efficient platform for a whole range of innovative applications, such as large-scale ad-hoc communications networks and plug-and-play wireless telemetry for monitoring and control, including tracking and tracing of devices.

   Status: Closed; filled on 23 Apr 2010.

   Contact: dr. Geert Leus

2. PV-Aware Design for Reliable 3-D Integration In the COBRA project (funded by the European Union), we study problems related to 3-D integration. The trend of moving from planar to 3-D integration is motivated by several reasons, including complexity, packaging constraints, and heterogeneity. Consequently, the 3-D technology provides an efficient way to realize physical routing in three dimensions, and enables the packing of complex and diverse functionalities in a minimal space and with shorter interconnections as compared to planar chips.

   Nonetheless, several challenges exist in designing 3-D integrated systems. The 3-D integration exacerbates the heat distribution and extraction problem of planar chips. Additionally, physical routing in 3-D systems is complex, because of the added vertical dimension, and of the constraints on the positions of the through-silicon-vias and their timing models. Similarly, the physical design of the network-on-chip (NoC) with specific reference to floor-planning and global routing of the links (with possible limitation on count, size, and positions), and the corresponding impact on NoC architectures pose further difficulty. Moreover, testing 3-D chips poses interesting problems because of the alignment and yield as well as controllability and observability in three dimensions. Additionally, parametric variability will be compounded since device layers are manufactured separately and then assembled, eventually leading to the yield and performance loss. As a result, process variation cannot be solved by improving manufacturing tolerances; variability must be reduced by new device technology or managed by design in order for scaling to continue.

   There are multiple possible topics the Ph.D. student could work on. For an overview, please see this document.

   Status: Closed

   Contact: dr.ir. Michel Berkelaar.

3. Dependable Distributed Sensor Systems [STW funded; project partners TNO, TU Delft Embedded Software group, TU Delft CAS group]

   Sensor networks have made a remarkable progress from a mere vision (Smart Dust, 1998), through early prototypes (Mica2 motes, 2002), to an ever-increasing set of deployments (2003 - today). However, operating a large-scale deployment involves still a lot of skilled manual labor, and experience is limited to static networks. This observation leads to the following, fundamental problem statement: How can we deploy, i.e. program and operate, large-scale distributed sensor systems across a wide variety of (unforeseen) circumstances such that users can depend on them.

   To keep this project tractable we propose an experimental approach around the application of localizing and tracking of people and objects in two complimentary scenarios: traffic monitoring and control in an urban environment (a fixed scenario with a dense number of sensors in a controllable environment) and rescue operations of firefighters and policemen (an ad-hoc scenario with few sensors in a hazardous environment). To realize working, and dependable, sensor systems in those scenarios we plan to contribute in three fields of research:

   • The development of a miniaturized radar sensor that can operate under a wide range of "difficult" environmental conditions (smoke, fog, etc.). This line of research is firmly rooted in the experience of TNO (radar) and UTwente (circuit design).
   • The development of an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for programming large-scale distributed sensor systems that takes dependability as a first class citizen into account, hence, dependability concerns are addressed at design (compile) time as well as at run-time, for example, to mitigate packet loss due to movement of scattering objects. This line of research continuous the work by Delft (Embedded Software group).
   • The design and implementation of localization and tracking algorithms using the radar sensor and dependability IDE outlined above. This line of research builds on the experience of both partners from Delft.
   There will be a number of researchers working on this project, and they will all have to collaborate to reach the common goal. The position within our group is mainly related to item 3 above.

   Status: Closed; this is now formulated as a postdoc position.

   Contact: dr. Geert Leus