3 scholarships for research subjects to be developed at Fondazione Bruno Kessler*, in Trento on predefined themes:

• Beyond edge computing in 5G systems
• Low power vision sensor for event detection
• Electronic viruses in cloud systems: attack and defense strategies

*Candidates will be asked to express their interest and availability for these positions during the interview. Interested candidates awarded one of these scholarships will carry out their Ph.D. activity mainly at the Fondazione Bruno Kessler Laboratories, Trento, Italy.

1 scholarship in partnership with the EMBIT Company* on

• Wireless Systems for Internet of Things

*Candidates will be asked to express their interest and availability for this position during the interview. The interested candidate awarded this scholarship will carry out the Ph.D. activity mainly at  the DEI Department, in Bologna, Italy.

1 Scholarship in partnership with Datalogic IP Tech* on

• Machine Learning for Automatic Identification Applications

*Candidates will be asked to express their interest and availability for this position during the interview. The interested candidate awarded this scholarship will carry out the Ph.D. activity mainly at the DEI Department, in Bologna, Italy.

4 POSITIONS IN HIGH APPRENTICESHIP* WITH TEKO TELECOM-JMA WIRELESS** ON

• 5G Radio Technology: channel characterization for high-frequency bands: The increasing demand for bandwidth, driven by 5G wireless communications new applications and scenarios, has led to consider the above 6 GHz frequency spectrum as a potential candidate for the radio interface. The unique propagation characteristics of this portion of spectrum need a dedicated and detailed channel modelling. In particular, investigations should focus on characterizing path loss parameters, fading contributions and correlation aspects for both indoor and outdoor environments. Definition of realistic application scenarios and study of available channel models would serve as basis to build an in deep knowledge on main propagation aspects to investigate.
• 5G Radio Technology: beamforming implementation and study on FPGA: Next-generation 5G radio technology, with its increasing demand for capacity and user experienced throughput, leads to the development of new and optimized radio techniques at PHY Level. Among them, antenna beamforming at high frequency bands seems extremely promising in achieving high spectral and energy efficiency, while reducing inter-user interference exploiting directive antenna beams. On top of investigating the advantages offered and challenges to be faced using beamforming technology, a part of the study will be devoted to its implementation on FPGA platforms to evaluate performances in realistic case studies. 

• 4G/5G networks: new technologies for extreme mobile broadband: In the roadmap of LTE Evolution to 5G the need for capacity and high data rate is mandatory to provide an extreme mobile broadband user experience. In this direction, the study of carrier aggregation techniques, namely LAA (Licensed Assisted Access) and LWA (LTE WLAN aggregation), seems of outmost importance. The principle behind these technologies is to increase operators’ LTE service by utilizing the unlicensed spectrum in the 5GHz range. In-deep coexistence and interference studies will be needed to better investigate techniques applicability and capabilities in realistic highly dense deployment scenarios.

• 4G/5G networks: RAN interference mitigation and coordination techniques: Coordinated multipoint transmission and reception (CoMP) techniques are used in 4G and future 5G network to enhance the overall system performance, using resources more effectively to improve the end user service quality. High data rates can be hence achieved, with particular attention to users located at cell edges. Co-channel interference can be also reduced exploiting some ad-hoc combining techniques. Investigating and evaluating benefits and possible evolutions for these interference mitigation and coordination techniques will be the core of the study; in particular, focusing on realistic highly-dense cellular environment.

*For more information about high apprenticeship, please visit the Ph.D. apprenticeship programmes page. 

**Ph.D. candidates will be asked to express their interest and availability to perform these research activities during the interview. Interested candidates awarded one of these positions will carry out their activity mainly at the Teko Telecom laboratories in Castel San Pietro Terme, Bologna, Italy. 

3 positions covered by research fellowships* on

• Hardware­ and software codesign of ultra­low power multicore systems­on­chip - Supervisor: Prof. Luca Benini
• Design, analysis, and management of high­performance computing systems - Supervisor: Prof. Luca Benini
• Design of low-power analog circuits for wake-up radio in IoT nodes - Supervisor: Prof. Eleonora Franchi

* Candidates will be asked to express their interest and availability for these positions during the interview. The interested candidates awarded one of these scholarship will carry out the Ph.D. activity at the DEI Department, in Bologna, Italy. 

6 scholarships for projects to be developed at the DEI Department in one of the following macro research areas*:

• Analog and digital circuits and electronic systems
• Analysis and simulation of semiconductor devices
• Applications of Information technologies: smart cities, smart grid
• Communication theory and its applications
• Communications architectures, systems, and networks: wireless, cellular, fixed / mobile terrestrial/satellite, wired and optical
• Electromagnetic theory, antennas, and propagation
• Electronic devices
• Electronics for telecommunications
• Embedded systems
• Energy harvesting
• Information theory and its applications
• Intelligent sensors
• Micro and nanotechnologies
• Microwave Photonics
• Navigation and positioning systems and applications
• Network control and management: software-defined networks
• Performance evaluation of communication networks
• Statistical signal processing and its applications
• Ultrasonics
• Wireless power transfer
• Science of Creative Thinking with Applications in the ICT Domain

* Ph.D. positions covered by these scholarships are not pre-linked to specific research projects or supervisors. Candidates awarded one of these scholarships will be assigned a Research project and a supervisor according to their curriculum, background, and research interests. The research project will be discussed and agreed before the start of the Ph.D. cycle. The activity will be performed either at the Bologna or Cesena Campus of the University of Bologna.

1 position of Industrial PhD in partnership with Greenways Technologies*

*This position is reserved for one of the employees of the Company.