PhDs opportunities at UCD on Autonomic Sensor Communities

The paradigm of widespread sensing addressed by the Centre mission will yield data of an unprecedented volume and heterogeneity. Very often we think of sensing as a relatively straightforward process of data capture given an appropriate sensing infrastructure. However, this ’blind’ gathering of data is an overly simplistic view, which naively fails to consider the use to which the data will be put, and the power envelope within which it must be assembled. CLARITY proposes an innovative suite of demonstrator projects to address important themes within our society and the Irish economy. Specifically, these projects will look at how CLARITY technology can have a meaningful impact on our quality of life by addressing important issues in areas such as personal health, lifestyle and media, and the environment. Demonstrator projects have been chosen as a means to showcase different aspects of the CLARITY research programme by taking advantage of, for example, the availability of increasingly sophisticated sensor platforms at different times in the Centre’s development.

Personalized Health

- addresses the fact that people are becoming increasingly conscious of their personal health and that the population in general is aging. Specific projects envisaged are: – Exercise & Health – Supporting the Aged

The Adaptive Environment

- addresses an increasing legislative and political framework compelling the use of increased monitoring of the environment in order to ensure regulatory compliance. Specific projects envisaged are: – Real-time Monitoring of Waste Shipments. – Long-Term, Autonomous Air/Water Quality Monitoring.

In order to achieve the described demonstrators’ projects 6 PhD tasks have been identified:

PhD TASK 1: ADAPTIVE CAPTURE AND FILTERING

The PhD candidate will address intelligent data gather by providing mechanisms for harmonising and delivering sensed data to the user and ensuring that these same mechanisms can be moderated based on user personalization and retrieval feedback. The candidate will develop a portable terminology, which will facilitate the management of autonomic wireless sensor networks. The candidate will develop novel techniques for adaptive capture and filtering, data aggregation and dissemination within a dynamic, unreliable, decentralised, and resource constrained network. Beneficial is a good knowledge of data base systems.

PhD TASK 2: SENSOR AGGREGATION AND DATA USABILITY

The PhD candidate will explore techniques for the fusing of sensory data. Typically this will necessitate shared data among few anchor nodes, which assist in performing key sensor data operations. Examples might be aggregation based upon data or sensor anchors, reduction of uncertainty, enhancement to extend or improve data content, aggregation based upon multi-media sensory sources or filtering of content based upon noise. Key research tasks involve the identification of sensor ontology and a naming convention for individual sensors and sensor clusters and identification and utilization of key data sensor anchors (such as location, time, calibration/quality etc.).

PhD TASK 3: DELIVERY AND DISSEMINATION WITHIN AN AUTONOMIC INFRASTRUCTURE

The PhD candidate will focus on the problem of scalable and reliable data and context collection and dissemination. This will involve the development of new communication messaging models. The communiation system would adapt to effecvily cope with user request and network conditions such as temporary network congestion. Rather than using widely adopted flooding models, we will develop self-managing (autonomic) systems models. By considering the query as a key driver in the system we investigate epidemic style algorithms to intelligently place data and propagate data through the system. Secondly we will consider the persistence of data and the notion of update propagation and the impact of reliability models on the epidemic dissemination models. Beneficial is a good knowledge of how to interface with and retrieve  network parameters from lower communication layers.

PhD TASK 4: COLLABORATION, AUTONOMY AND MOBILITY

The PhD will investigate mechanisms for supporting decisions that are inherently collaborative in nature. The apparatus developed here will be used in the delivery of intelligent decision-making associated to the actuation of events resulting from network behaviours and/or anomalies. Software agency plays a key role in supporting collaborative and distributed decision making by advocating a paradigm where stakeholders collaborate and negotiate in the solution of shared problems. Agents can assist in the decomposition and management of the decision-making process.

PhD TASK 5: INTERACTION TOOL FOR NETWORK DIAGNOSIS

A central challenge facing sensor network research and development is the difficulty in monitoring and remotely controlling a sensor network deployment. Currently, control and monitoring are addressed separately through specialized tools. Thus, there is a need for unified control and visualization tool for sensor network wellness diagnosis to enable users to monitor the network and respond to network state changes. This task will develop a fully extensible and versatile tool to empower both developers and final user in order to localise the nodes, control, interact and reprogram wirelessly and dynamically a heterogeneous sensor network.

PhD TASK 6: INTERACTIVE INDOOR AND OUTDOOR NODE LOCALIZATION

Finding the physical position of each device in the network is the major task of the automatic commissioning systems. Indoor localization through a single frequency range measurement has proved to be hard due to interference and attenuation due to dividing walls and objects. This task will investigate will investigate the identification and usage of extra information such as ultrasound time of arrival, signal attenuation etc., to enhance the location of nodes in a dynamic and changeable environment.

PhD TASK 7: UBIQUITOUS ROBOTICS

The PhD candidate will address the area of robots integrated in ubiquitous, pervasive, and intelligent environments.
Such robots are part of open and distributed networks of sensors, actuators, and computing services, which can also act as a shared information space for both the robots and the humans they interact with.
Some of the relevant research directions foreseen within this task are:

-The application of Agent-Oriented Software Engineering (AOSE) and Multi-Agent System (MAS) coordination techniques to develop distributed and adaptive software architectures. These architectures are defined in terms of distributed and autonomous software modules (agents), which can exhibit global self-configuration properties and can also deliver context-sensitive and personalized services to both the users and the robots in the environment.

-The integration between robots and wireless sensor networks (WSNs), that is, robots acting as mobile gateways or otherwise working to the advantage of networks of wirelessly connected sensors, e.g. carrying out maintenance, localization, and calibration operations in applications such as security, search & rescue, and surveillance systems.

REQUIREMENTS

Required education/skills: University Graduate. We require a bachelor degree (or equivalent) in computer science, computer/electronic/electrical/telecommunication engineering. Preference will be given to applicants holding a Master degree (or equivalent). The candidate should evidence good mastering of the English language, good communication skills and good study results and international experience are required. Technical skills: Preference will be given to candidate with a good understanding of embedded system programming, energy-efficient sensor networking and knowledge of related operating systems such as TinyOS or Contiki.

HOW/WHEN TO APPLY

Please fill in the csi-pgrad-app form attached on this page and email it to both ruzzelli@ucd.ie and gregory.ohare@ucd.ie together with your CV and a short cover letter. Applications will be scanned and an initial response given to the candidates within days after reception of the CV and application request.

We are now accepting PhD applications for candidates starting in January 2009. The new application deadline for candidates is 1 Dec 2008.

Applications are initially evaluated at the time of reception and some of them are promptly notified of acceptance/rejection. The rest of applicants will pass a second phase review and get notified after the deadline.  

ORGANIZATION

University College Dublin The mission of University College Dublin is to advance knowledge, pursue truth and foster learning in an atmosphere of discovery, innovation and excellence. We have a long and proud tradition of first-class learning and we are renowned internationally for our high quality teaching, and our pioneering research. The development of Structured PhD Research programmes and Professional Development Plans are guided by Europe-wide best practice. Our growing graduate community benefits from some of Ireland best facilities and support services. UCD is a vibrant, modern university, the largest in Ireland, and offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programmes. We regards UCD as a place where talented people get every opportunity to perform cutting edge research, truly a university with an international character in a beautiful green surrounding as the best Irish tradition can offer.

School of Computer Science and Informatics

UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics is currently enjoying its most successful period to date. Its rapidly expanding curriculum and research agenda is matched with unprecedented growth in student and staff numbers. This growth, together with our modern new building, will allow UCD School of Computer Science and Informatics to lead the way into the future. The school has a thriving research culture and is attracting important a great number of industry with the active involvement of all staff members and over 200 postgraduates.

CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT

Estimated salary per year: €20000 tax free + governmental annual increase.

Employment basis: Full time

Duration of the PhD contract: is 4 years funded.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Additional information about UCD, location and work environment can be obtained from the UCD website.