PhD student Generic phased array feed for ground station G/T optimisation and RFI resilience

Submission Information
Publish Date: 
Tuesday, July 12, 2022
Archive Date: 
Tuesday, September 6, 2022
Job Summary
Job Category: 
Pre-doctoral/Graduate Positions
Institution Classification/Type: 
Research Laboratory
Institution/Company: 
ASTRON
City: 
Dwingeloo
State/Province: 
Drenthe
Zip/Postal: 
7991 PD
Country: 
Netherlands
Announcement
Job Announcement Text: 

Are you looking for a high impact PhD position in close collaboration with industry?

The European Doctoral Network ‘ANTERRA’ offers 15 fully funded industrial PhD student positions in the area of antennas, integrated circuits and signal processing, starting in the autumn of 2022. ANTERRA is focussed on Antenna Systems for 6G Non-Terrestrial Networks. The consortium consists of 14 leading European R&D laboratories from universities, industries, and technology institutes in the domain of satellite communication and wireless infrastructure which are located in The Netherlands, France, Sweden, Italy and Belgium.

Research

Our society is on the brink of a new age with the development of new visionary concepts such as internet of things, smart cities, autonomous driving, smart mobility, and coverage everywhere. This stimulates the use of new deployment concepts, such as extreme densification or Non-Terrestrial Networks (NTN), to support the wireless communication evolution. For 6G, a key use case which stands unaddressed by prior telecommunication generations, is that of coverage everywhere. One of the major reasons for not addressing this use case thus far is the lack of expertise about non-terrestrial communication in the classical (terrestrial) telecommunication industry. The European research project ANTERRA addresses this issue by training 15 PhD students on antenna systems for NTN, one of the key aspects to successfully implement coverage everywhere.

In ANTERRA, the research fellows will investigate particular aspects of the system concept.  For this, they will take a system view by investigating architectural needs and constraints from which they will develop novel multi-functional high-gain antenna architectures that exhibit a large coverage. Moreover, innovations in energy efficient highly integrated radio front-ends is a key enabler towards more efficient, high performance radio-access hardware for satellite nodes. Research in novel synchronization and beam-finding techniques will lead to stable integration of all network nodes into one global 6G NTN. All concepts will be optimized to meet the requirements of NTN antenna systems.

This vacancy concerns the PhD position on Generic phased array feed for ground station G/T optimisation and RFI resilience. In recent years phased array feeds have demonstrated significant improvement in the field-of-view of reflector antennas. This project aims to investigate the feasibility of applying the phased array feed technology in non-terrestrial communication networks. Towards this end, this work aims to demonstrate that such technology is able to optimize ground station antenna performance for maximum gain-to-noise ratio towards a single, or multiple, satellite(s) within a confined field-of-view, while at the same time spatially nulling local interfering radio frequency sources. In order to deploy a phased array receiver on various reflector systems, a generic phased array demonstrator is to be designed that would enable multi-beam coverage from different reflector antennas. 

Training programme

ANTERRA will provide the PhD students with a comprehensive set of theoretical and practical skills relevant for innovation and long-term employability in a rapidly growing sector. This highly innovative training will cover several inter-disciplinary areas as  in the figure here. Each PhD student will be enrolled in a doctoral programme and will have two official employers, one from academia and one from industry. Highly qualified personnel from both employers will jointly coach the PhD student.

Job requirements

Applicants should have, or expect to receive, a Master of Science degree or equivalent in a relevant electrical engineering or applied physics discipline and should not have more than four years of research experience. In addition to the formal Research Fellow qualifications, selection is also based on the performance of the candidates in other works (e.g. thesis and advanced level courses), as well as through interviews and assignments. Besides good subject knowledge, emphasis will be on creative thinking, motivation, ability to cooperate, initiative to work independently and personal suitability for research training. Previous experience in the area of antennas, electronics and signal processing as well as proficiency in using scientific and engineering software packages such as Matlab, ADS, CST etc. are advantageous.

For the PhD positions the EU ‘Mobility rules’ apply. For this vacancy this means that candidate students cannot have resided for more than 12 months during the period of 3 years immediately before the start of the PhD in the Netherlands.

Additional information

For more information on the content of this vacancy, please contact Dr. David Prinsloo, Competence Group Leader, Smart Frontend Group: [email protected]. For other information about ASTRON, please visit www.astron.nl or contact the HR department via: [email protected].

How to apply

You can apply for this job by submitting your curriculum vitae and covering letter via the website www.astron.nl/careers. The closing date is 30 August 2022.

 

Application Deadline: 
Tuesday, August 30, 2022
Current Status of Position: 
Accepting Applicants
Apply to Job
Attention To: 
Henriëtte Orsel
Title: 
HR Coordinator
Institution/Company: 
ASTRON
Department Name: 
HR
Inquiries About Job
Attention To: 
Dr. David Prinsloo
Subject: 
Inquiries about PhD Generic phased array feed for ground station G/T optimisation and RFI resilience