PhD position on UWB for IoT at Univ. of Trento

Applications are invited from those interested in pursuing a PhD on the
Internet of Things (IoT) at the University of Trento, Italy.
The focus of the proposed research will be on ultra-wideband (UWB)
radios, rapidly gaining popularity due to their high communication
data rate (6.8Mbps) and especially their ability to estimate distance
with great accuracy (<10cm error), enabling countless IoT applications
based on proximity and localization, even in GPS-denied environments
like indoor. The fact that Apple's iPhone 11 is equipped with an UWB
chip is a witness to the disruptive impact of this technology.
The research proposed will in principle explore both communication and
localization aspects, as well as the interplay of UWB with other
low-power wireless technologies for IoT, e.g., Bluetooth or LoRa. The
general goal of the PhD is to contribute novel paradigms and
demonstrate their effectiveness with system prototypes. The evaluation
of the latter will exploit the unique facilities available to the
research team, which include 1) a 70-node testbed across two large
building floors and 2) an optical localization facility yielding
mm-level accurate ground truth.
Candidates can gather a glimpse of the research carried out from
recent publications of the advisor (see link below), whose team is one
of the leading ones on UWB, with published papers at top conferences
(EWSN'18, IPSN'19, SECON'19, IROS'19, IPIN'19), two of which received
the Best Paper Award:
* at EWSN'18, for a novel technique called concurrent ranging, based
on the simultaneous transmission of packets whose time of arrival is
reconstructed at the receiver from the channel impulse response
(CIR) provided by UWB chips. This technique enables disruptive
improvements in latency and energy consumption.
* at IPIN'19, for a novel approach enabling time-difference-of-arrival
(TDoA) across large areas that, by achieving tight multi-hop
synchronization, yields the same accuracy of mainstream approaches
limited to a single localization "cell".
The research team has a long-standing track record in the general
field of low-power wireless technologies for IoT, and 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) and PerCom (2012).
The research team favors a mix of curiosity-driven and
application-driven research. New PhD students are invited to
participate in ongoing projects to gain experience and insights into
real systems, and to identify novel, challenging problems whose
solution breaks new grounds. Examples of past and ongoing (funded)
projects applying UWB and the related research include an asset
tracking system for logistics, a system monitoring the trajectories of
people in indoor spaces, a novel drone-based localization system, and
even a ground navigation system in support of planetary exploration.
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, characterized by a
young and international faculty and by a large, international student
population. Indicators for scientific production place the department
among the top in Europe. The Department and the PhD school closely
collaborate with, and operate in, a rapidly growing research and
innovation environment characterized by top-class research centers and
an increasing number of industrial research labs, including the
Italian co-location center of the European Institute of Innovation and
Technology (EIT).
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
JUNE 16, 2020, at 16:00 (Italy time, GMT +2)
at the link below.
IMPORTANT:
In the application, you must select the "Project specific grant" (Reserved
Topic Scholarship) with the title below
"Low-power Localization for the Internet of Things (IoT)" (label B3)
Failure to do so results in ineligibility for the position described here.
It is strongly advised to contact Prof. Gian Pietro Picco
(gianpietro.picco-AT-unitn.it) well before submitting the application, by
providing a curriculum vitae including three references.
Links:
Call for application, with links to online application
https://ict.unitn.it/education/admission/call-for-...
Prof. Gian Pietro Picco: http://disi.unitn.it/~picco
PhD school: http://ict.unitn.it
DISI: http://disi.unitn.it