PhD position on Cloud-native network management for immersive telepresence

Ghent University – imec IDLab Research group

The candidate will be supervised by Prof. Filip De Turck and work at IDLab, a core research group at the Department of Information Technology, Ghent University. Our group performs fundamental and applied research on data science and Internet technology, and is, with close to 500 researchers, one of the larger research groups at imec. Imec, in its turn, is the world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies. By leveraging a world-class research infrastructure and local and global ecosystem of partners across a multitude of industries, innovation is created in application domains such as healthcare, smart cities, logistics, manufacturing, and energy.

The candidate will reside in the iGent building, Technologiepark-Zwijnaarde 126, 9052 Ghent.

Tentative starting period: early 2023. The position is valid for one year and can be extended to a maximum of four years. Visit this page for more information about PhD studies at Ghent University.

Research Area 

Novel ultra-high throughput and ultra-low latency services in application domains involving immersive human-to-human and human-to-machine interactions require fundamental changes to networking architectures and integration with computational resources in the cloud-edge continuum.

To support such communication and experiences in extended reality scenarios, the 6G ecosystem must envision an end-to-end, cloud-native architecture that is able to orchestrate both networking and computational resources efficiently.

In the Horizon Europe project SPIRIT, the candidate will work on solutions for AI-based resource management to support immersive, collaborative telepresence applications on Europe’s first multi-site experimentation framework, including but not limited to the following topics:

• End-to-end resource orchestration in support of Quality-of-Experience optimization;
• Machine learning mechanisms for increased automation and reliability of multimedia services;
• Efficient and dynamic placement of network functions and service function chains;
• Integration of novel networking paradigms for high-quality video streaming;
• Distributed and federated solutions for cross-domain and cross-provider management of storage, computing and network resources;
• Proof-of-concept system realization for container-based applications in a European-scale testbed.

What you will do

• Conducting research in the context of national and European research projects
• Implementing novel AI techniques for resource orchestration in next-generation networks
• Designing and implementing multimedia streaming solutions
• Planning and conducting well-designed simulation and emulation experiments on our Virtual Wall infrastructure and on imec’s technical lab
• Performing statistical analysis and interpretation of results
• Presenting results and findings at international conferences and in scientific journals

Who you are

• Master’s degree in computer science, informatics, or electrical engineering
• A keen interest in network and service management solutions
• Strong analytical skills; well-organized and able to autonomously plan and execute tasks
• Highly proficient in a variety of programming languages (e.g., Java, Python, C/C++)
• Excellent communication skills in English – both orally and written
• Highly motivated to conduct scientific research

Interested?

Application submitted electronically in a single PDF file, by e-mail to Prof. Filip De Turck and Dr. Tim Wauters (filip.deturck@ugent.be and tim.wauters@ugent.be)
Include your CV and a motivation letter, and if possible, an overview of study results
Submit your application as soon as possible, as a decision may be taken before the deadline
Selected candidates will be contacted for a remote interview and a programming test
For more information, please contact Dr. Tim Wauters (tim.wauters@ugent.be)