PhD Position in 'real-time software in safe and autonomous drones'

University of Technology (TU/e, https://www.tue.nl/en/) is one of Europe's top technological universities, situated at the heart of a most innovative high-tech region, with a wealth of collaborations with industry and academic institutes. In 2017, TU/e was ranked 15th in Europe in the Times Higher Educational World University ranking for Engineering and Technology. TU/e has around 3,000 employees and 2,300 PhD students (half of which international, representing about 70 nationalities).

Electronic Systems group at the TU/e
The Electronic Systems (ES) group consists of seven full professors, one associate professor, eight assistant professors, several postdocs, about 30 PDEng and PhD candidates and support staff. The ES group is world-renowned for its design automation and embedded systems research. It is our ambition to provide a scientific basis for design trajectories of electronic systems, ranging from digital circuits to cyber-physical systems. The group is strongly involved in the electrical engineering bachelor and master programs of the TU/e, as well as in the automotive bachelor program and the embedded systems master program. The group has excellent infrastructure that includes individual computers, computer servers, state-of-the-art FPGA and GPU farms, sensor- and ad-hoc networking equipment, a cyber-physical systems lab, an electronics lab and a comprehensive range of electronic-design software. ES has strong collaborations with industry, research institutes and other universities. Eleven of its staff members have a second affiliation besides their TUE-ES affiliation. The ES group has been very successful in attracting funding for its research through national and international projects and collaborations (EU programs: H2020, ITEA, CATRENE, ECSEL, Artemis, Marie Curie; national programs: NWO, RVO, contract research), for a total budget of around 2M euro per year. The ES group is a multicultural team, with staff members of eight different nationalities and students from all over the world.

Project description
The research is part of the recently granted ECSEL project COMP4DRONES, an international consortium with the participation of TUE, Thales, SIEMENS, BOSCH, HONEYWELL, and others.

COMP4DRONES will develop techologies and hardware & software architectures for safe & autonomous drones (unmanned areal vehicles). Current drone platforms are composed of multiple loosely-coupled monolithic subsystems (e.g. powerful processors). Instead COMP4DRONES will follow a modular architectural approach inspired from IMA (Integrated Modular Avionics). IMA is based on set of flexible, reusable and interoperable hardware and software resources that, when integrated, meet a defined set of functional, safety and performance requirements. Independent & modular design, verification and execution (compositionality) will be guaranteed through well-specified interfaces, especially focusing on network and hardware connectivity and a modular system management infrastructure.

The PhD at the Electronic Systems group of the Electrical Engineering faculty will first investigate safety and modular certification through the composability concept. The CompSOC real-time multi-core platform will the starting point. It is available on (e.g. ZYNQ) FPGAs as well as ASIC. Second, the TUE will investigate how to make existing drone software frameworks composable and predictable. We will do this by virtualising or combining the CompSOC's microkernel/virtualization with e.g. embedded Linux and data distribution service (DDS), and the Robotic Operating System (ROS/ ROS2).

The position is supervised by Prof.dr. Kees Goossens and dr. Dip Goswami.

We are looking for highly motivated candidates with good English proficiency. Candidates must have a relevant master degree (Electrical or Computer Engineering, Informatics or Computer Science, Electrical Engineering - ideally with focus on Embedded Systems or Cyber Physical Systems) with excellent grades. The PhD candidate must have strong analytical skills, including performance analysis of embedded systems. Good programming skills in C or C++. Knowledge of networking (protocol stacks, etc.). Experience with Linux, software development (version management, compilation flow, IDEs, etc.). Experience with (real-time, safety-critical) embedded systems and/or drone/automotive/aerospace architectures is an advantage.

We offer a challenging job in a dynamic and ambitious university through a fixed-term appointment for a period of 4 years. The research must be concluded with the attainment of a Ph.D. degree. As an employee of the university you will receive a competitive salary as well as excellent employment conditions. The salary starts at € 2325.-per month (gross) in the first year, increasing up to € 2972.- per month (gross) in the last year. Moreover, an 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% end-of-year allowance is provided annually. Assistance for finding accommodation can be given. The university offers an attractive package of fringe benefits such as excellent technical infrastructure, child care, savings schemes, and excellent sports facilities.

TU/e also offers you the opportunity for personal development by developing your social and communication skills. We do this by offering every PhD student a series of courses in the PROOF program as an excellent addition to your scientific education.