The School of Engineering and Digital Arts (EDA) is seeking a highly motivated PhD student with a firm commitment to research in the transport network (mainly fronthaul) component of future mobile communication systems. We need an inquisitive problem solver who is able to work autonomously and also function well in a research team.
The 3-year fully-funded PhD studentship will be based in EDA and the student will work under the supervision of Dr Philippos Assimakopoulos and Professor Nathan Gomes alongside a funded EU Horizon 2020 project: http://5g-drive.eu/, in which the Kent work is coordinated by Dr Huiling Zhu.
The successful applicant will be expected to explore transport network (fronthaul and xhaul) solutions for fifth generation (5G) and beyond mobile communications, including the support of massive MIMO systems. This may comprise analogue and digital transport, resource allocation, queuing and software-defined networking in an Ethernet fronthaul, and network slicing through transport network segments. The work will be carried out using simulations and experiments, using software-defined radio testbeds. The work in this PhD project will complement ongoing research collaborations with other project partners. The successful candidate will be expected to give presentations to research groups, project partners and at conferences, write technical reports, and draft papers for peer-reviewed journals.
The successful applicant will be part of the Communications Research Group in EDA. The research group is internationally renowned for research in mobile systems, antennas, and photonics. It has excellent laboratory facilities including software-based LTE testbed, refurbished anechoic chamber, vector network analyser to 80 GHz, RF measurement up to over 300 GHz, and arbitrary waveform generation and digital sampling oscilloscopes to 50 GHz. The group has extensive involvement in UK and EU research projects. It possesses a wide range of expertise from theoretical analysis to specific system implementations. The group has strong links with researchers at other British and overseas universities as well as with industrial collaborators.
The candidate will ideally have a Masters degree in Electronics or an Engineering subject with some specialisation related to wireless and/or optical fibre communications and networks. Research experience in such areas is desirable but not essential.
For overseas applicants, the minimum English requirement is to have an IELTS score of 6.5 overall, including 6.0 in both reading and writing.
Funding Availability: The successful candidate will be fully funded and the funding will cover both the bursary and fees (for international students) for 3 years. A travel budget is also available for attending project meetings.
Length of award: 3 years
Start date: September 2019 or soon thereafter
Eligibility: Open to all applicants.
Application: Apply for a PhD at
https://www.kent.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/262/electronic-engineering and specify the research topic “5G-DRIVE fronthaul”.
Enquiries: Any enquiries relating to the project should be directed to Professor Nathan Gomes
Application Deadline: 29 March 2019 (interviews are to be held on 12 April)
Full details concerning this opportunity can be find on our Find a Scholarship website.