Ph.D. position available in "Low-power wireless networking and localization for the Internet of Things"
Deadline: AUGUST 5, 2024 at 16:00 (Italy time, GMT +2)
Applications are invited from those interested in pursuing a PhD on the Internet of Things (IoT) at the University of Trento, Italy.
The PhD student will explore research themes at the intersection of networking and localization. These include novel schemes to efficiently coordinate and harmonize the two in a single protocol stack and novel techniques that improve the two dimensions separately. Particular emphasis will be given to techniques exploiting concurrent transmissions. The reference radio technology for these research efforts will be ultra-wideband (UWB) but others (e.g., Bluetooth, LoRa, backscatter) are also within scope.
The activities carried out can be characterized as "systems research". Novel ideas and contributions are embodied in prototypes concretely demonstrating feasibility and improvements over the state of the art. Ongoing projects include: understanding the behavior of visitors in a museum; understanding social interactions among individuals and groups; sports analytics; industrial control and robotics. Typical performance metrics include energy efficiency, ranging/positioning accuracy, reliability, scalability w.r.t. users and sample rate. Models are used to characterize the performance of prototypes, which are then evaluated experimentally in realistic setups. In this respect, the research group offers unique assets, including a 130-node (~8000sqm) indoor UWB testbed and two accurate (mm-level) motion capture optical facilities.
The research team has a long-standing track record in the general field of low-power wireless technologies for IoT. It has been particularly successful in bringing research results into real-world prototypes and long-term operational deployments, yielding award-winning scientific publications, e.g., at IPSN (2009, 2011, 2015, 2023), PerCom (2012), EWSN (2018), and IPIN (2019).
The language of the research group is English.
The Department of Information Engineering and Computer Science (DISI) is a leading and fast-growing research institution, with a young faculty and an international student population. Indicators for scientific production place the department among the top in Europe. The Department and the PhD school closely collaborate with a rapidly growing research and innovation environment.
Trento is a vibrant city with a beautifully preserved historic center, consistently ranked among the best cities for quality of life in Italy. It offers a variety of cultural and sports opportunities all year round, as well as excellent food and wine.
Applications must be filed online before AUGUST 5, 2024, at 16:00 (Italy time, GMT +2) at the link below.
IMPORTANT: In the application, you must select "Area B" (containing "Wireless networking, sensing and localization"). Failure to do so results in ineligibility for the position described here.