Main supervisor profile and contact: Dr. Xavier Costa-Pérez <xavier.costa@neclab.eu> and Dr. Vincenzo Sciancalepore <vincenzo.sciancalepore@neclab.eu>

Institution: NEC Laboratories Europe

Description of the job: The advertised position refers to a project, in which smart and automated solutions will be designed and developed within the context of Smart Edge. In particular, the work will focus on developing a smart orchestration layer for computational resources among different smart edge platforms including MEC/FOG orchestration techniques. Work objectives are smart orchestration design, analytical modeling and evaluation, research prototypes software development, publications as well as IPR creation.

Mission: 1) To identify the gap of existing network orchestration solutions while satisfying novel smart factory requirements (low latency, ultra-high reliability); this include the orchestration of multiple FOG and MEC infrastructures considering computational/networking resources. 2) To formulate mathematical models fully describing the problem. 3) To devise algorithms based on artificial intelligence (AI) that provides a higher level of resilience and robustness with respect to existing approaches and providing strong isolation guarantees in MEC/FOG environments. Resource utilization statistics, user distributions, service requirements will be instrumental to fully orchestrate E2E resources within the network slice tailored to a particular service. 4) Integration of MEC/FOG orchestration with an E2E 5G operative system including datacenter and transport network orchestration. 5) Patents and integration in product.

Main functions: 1) AI-based algorithms for network slices orchestration when heterogeneous service requirements, including low latency and high reliability are in place. 2) Publications in top-tier conferences/journals. In addition, the ESR will test proposed ideas on a real 5G-like testbed within the NEC laboratories. 3) Integration into NEC solutions.

Secondments: You will spend a 6 months secondment at CNRS, Université Paris-Saclay (Paris, France) (supervised by Dr. Marco di Renzo).

Doctoral programme: The ESR will be enrolled in the University of Paris-Saclay doctoral programme under the joint supervision of Marco Di Renzo (University of Paris-Saclay).

Requirements of the candidate

• Education level: Master degree.

• Degree/speciality: Computer science or telecommunications.

• Language skills: Very good English standards (oral, reading, writing) are required.

• Research experience: Required in at least three of the following areas: 1) Cellular network systems, concepts and architectures, 2) Physical and MAC layer radio access technologies; 3) Mathematical optimization and machine learning; 4) Software development and programming in Python and C/C++; 4) Prototyping with real testbeds and physical propagation devices.

• Other skills: See above.

Apply: Job application form and NEC website with reference [2207-444-6GN]. Please remember to send your application to both websites.