Main supervisor profile and contact: Dr. Daniel Camps Mur (I2CAT) and Dr. Eduard Garcia Villegas (UPC)

Institution: i2CAT

Description of the job: The focus of the PhD consists in proposing and evaluating extensions to the 5GNR and IEEE 802.11 technologies to support time sensitive services. TSN support is an important topic being considered in the standardization of 5GNR in 3GPP release 17 and the IEEE 802.11be (also known as extremely high throughput, the basis of the forthcoming Wi-Fi 7). The expected outcomes of the PhD include:

1) Development of an ns3 based simulation environment supporting TSN extensions over 802.11/5GNR in representative factory environments. 2) Definition and evaluation of TSN scheduling algorithms and protocol extensions. 3) Prototyping and evaluation in testbed environments. 4) Publications in top-tier conferences/journals. 5) Patents/standardization contributions with industrial advisors

Mission: In industrial environments, there are many use cases where communications between different elements must comply with strict timing requirements (e.g. safety systems or closed-loop regulatory systems). Modern wired networking solutions are capable of carrying that kind of time-sensitive data. However, wiring potentially thousands of sensors and actuators in future industry environments is costly, and many times even unfeasible (e.g. flammable, explosive, or very hot environments). This is why wireless technologies are starting to become a firm candidate for enabling communications within industrial processes, even though the nature of wireless channels raises many challenges to the implementation of the concept of time-sensitive networking. These are the type of challenges this project will tackle. In this sense, the selected candidate will carry out a PhD at the Mobile Wireless Internet group in i2CAT, Barcelona. The topic of the PhD is “Time Sensitive Network (TSN) over wireless networks in industrial environments”, and is funded by the ITN MSCA H2020 project 5GSmartFact (webpage-TBD). The selected candidate will be part of a network of 14 Early-Stage Researchers (ESR) funded by the project, benefiting from multiple training and research activities. The objectives of the PhD include:

1) Definition of protocol extensions to enable Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) over wireless networks, including IEEE 802.11 and 3GPP 5GNR. 2) Integration of wireless TSN hops in end-to-end IEEE 802.1 TSN networks in factory environments. 3) Definition and evaluation of MAC level scheduling algorithm development to guarantee SLA of TSN flows over wireless TSN links. 4) Design of a management framework for joint setup of TSN flows in hybrid wired-wireless environments

Main functions:

The expected outcomes of the PhD include: 1) Development of an ns3 based simulation environment supporting TSN extensions over 802.11/5GNR in representative factory environments. 2) Definition and evaluation of TSN scheduling algorithms and protocol extensions. 3) Prototyping and evaluation in testbed environments. 4) Publications in top-tier conferences/journals. 5) Patents/standardization contributions with industrial advisors

Secondments: The selected candidate will take part in two secondments of 9 months each, hosted by NEC Network Laboratories (supervised by Dr. Vincenzo Sciancalepore) in Heidelberg, Germany, and ABB in Sweden (supervised by Dr. Krister Landernas).

Doctoral programme: The ESR will be enrolled in the UPC Doctoral programme on Network Engineering

Requirements of the candidate

• Education level: Master on Engineering

• Degree/speciality: Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications, or Computer Science

• Language skills: Fluency in English (written and oral). Spanish or Catalan are considered a plus.

• Research experience: 1) Preliminary experience with network computer simulations (e.g. ns3, matlab), 2) Preliminary experience in applying research methodology during Master’s Thesis, 3) Preliminary experience in developing analytical models to research problems

• Other skills: 1) Understanding of 3GPP technologies, 2) Understanding of IEEE 802.11 technologies, 3) Understanding of IP and Ethernet networking, 4) Analytical thinking, 5) C/C++ programming, 6) Linux administration skills, 7) Team-work, proactivity

Apply: Job application form and i2CAT vacancies website . Please remember to send your application to both websites.