Embedded Systems Engineering (ESE) is a section in the Department of Informatics and Mathematical Modelling, Technical University of Denmark. ESE conducts research on the modelling, design, analysis, optimization and verification of embedded systems.

PhD positions
All 5 PhD positions are fully financed by ESE with a preferred starting date 1^st of September 2010. The PhD positions are available within the following projects:

RECOMP project (1 PhD position)
The proposed RECOMP (Reduced certification cost for trusted multi-core platforms) research project will establish methods, tools and platforms for enabling cost-efficient certification and re-certification of safety-critical systems and mixed-criticality systems, i.e. systems containing safety-critical and non-safety-critical components.

Safety-critical systems are embedded computer systems where a failure can endanger the human life or the environment. Applying formal methods to safety-critical code is a way to remove the bugs (we know that no code is bug free, so this is typically used in conjunction with fault-tolerance measures). However, such techniques are very costly and hence they are not applied to non-safety critical code - most applications have both safety-critical (SC) and non-safety-critical code (NSC).

The current practice is to physically separate the SC and NSC parts in different hardware components, so they cannot influence each other (i.e., the NSC cannot tamper with the SC part). This has led to a tremendous increase in hardware modules and wiring, which is increasing costs, size, power consumption, etc. To allow the integration of several functions (SC and NSC) onto the same hardware, enough “spatial” and “temporal” partitioning must be provided. This is coupled with the trend nowadays on multi-core systems, where several processors can be integrated onto a single chip, decreasing the costs, power consumption, size, and increasing the performance through parallelization. Companies have started to use multi-core systems and to integrate both SC and NSC components onto the same chip.

However, in this case any small change to the NSC part will require a complete re-certification of the whole system. This is because the regulatory authorities consider that none of the existing multi-core architectures and operating systems offers enough separation between the SC and NSC parts: so even a small change in the NSC part would require the system to be re-certified. The focus of the RECOMP EU project is to reduce the certification costs related to using multi-core architectures. This means creating architectures (both hardware and software) and tools, which are the focus of this project, to achieve enough separation. ESE is the work-package leader on design methods and tools in RECOMP. For more details about the project please click here.

For further details, please contact Associate Professor Paul Pop.

ASAM project (2 PhD positions)
The ASAM project addresses a uniform process of automatic architecture synthesis and application mapping for heterogeneous multi-processor embedded systems, defining a new unified design methodology, as well as, related synthesis and prototyping tool-chains. Main objective of the project is to build a unified synthesis and prototyping environment enabling:

1. technology-aware multi-objective design space exploration for configurable heterogeneous multi-ASIP systems and identification of the application-tailored system architecture (i.e. selection of the number of processors, kind and shape of communication resources and memories hierarchy, as well as their composition);
2. automatic architecture instantiation or customization of particular application-tailored processors, hardware accelerators, communication and memory structures, including extension of processors with new application-specific instructions;
3. optimal hardware synthesis of the created platform,
4. automatic application mapping on the resulting multi-processor heterogeneous system,
5. software compiler retargeting and automatic software compilation, when accounting for the processor characteristics and for functional and extra-functional requirements and trade-offs.

In order to pursue this whole set of objectives, a highly efficient automatic synthesis flow will be created from the algorithmic specification down to its hardware/software implementation at the circuit/code level. The automatic synthesis flow will enable the system and algorithm designers to focus on the higher-level design and algorithm development issues, relieving them from the lower-level implementation issues. In this way, the new design environment will enable the system and algorithm designers to perform rapid exploration of the high-level and algorithm design space and, consequently, to quickly develop high-quality designs. At the same time, the final system synthesis will be automated in an efficient way.

The PhD positions are mainly focused on the system-level design space exploration, i.e., item 1.

For further details, please contact Prof. Jan Madsen.

Energy optimized remote sensing for climate and environmental monitoring (2 PhD positions)
The project aims at developing, implementing and deploying a large wireless sensor network (WSN) for climate and environmental monitoring. One aim is to develop a platform that can be used by companies who wants to develop applications in this field. During the project, a full scale demonstrator WSN (approximately 200 nodes) will be developed and deployed in an area around Delta in Hørsholm, Denmark (10 km from DTU).

A key aspect of the developed sensor nodes is the ability to be supplied from local energy harvesting (no batteries) and all the derived challenges from this, i.e. node wakeup and sleep modes may no longer be guided by time, but by the available energy. This will enforce new ways of controlling the individual nodes and the communication between them, as well as new design methodologies.

The PhD positions will be involved in the development of a system-level model and analysis techniques, which are able to capture the features of the WSN, as well as the actual development and deployment of applications onto the large demonstrator WSN, including the handling of energy harvesting.

For further details, please contact Professor Jan Madsen.

Requirements
Candidates must have a master degree in computer science and / or computer engineering, or equivalent academic qualifications. For RECOMP, preference will be given to candidates who can document knowledge of algorithms and data structures. For the other two projects, in addition to this, we prefer candidates that have experience with embedded systems development (both hardware and software). Furthermore, good command of the English language is essential.

Approval and Enrolment
The scholarship for the PhD degree is subject to academic approval, and the candidate will be enrolled in the ITMAN Graduate School Programme of DTU Informatics. Information about the general requirements for enrolment and the general planning of the scholarship studies is included in the general rules at DTU, which may be obtained here.

Further information
Further information concerning the application is available at the DTU Informatics PhD homepage, the DTU Informatics Graduate School ITMAN homepage or by contacting the responsible ITMAN Graduate School secretary: Ulla Jensen.

Application procedure
Applications must be submitted in English and we must have your online application by July 5^th 2010. Please open the link in the grey bar below: "apply for this job online" (“søg stillingen online”). Please attach your application as a single PDF file containing:

• A letter motivating the application (see the guidelines below)
• Curriculum vitae of the applicant including a list of publications (see the guidelines below)
• Grade transcripts and BSc/MSc diploma
• Conversion of grade averages to Danish grades (see the guidelines here “Weighted average")

Only complete applications are considered.

Motivation letter
State that you (name, university, country) are applying for a PhD position. Mention which of the available positions you are applying for, and if more than one, present a prioritized list.

Motivation: Write what has motivated you to apply for the scholarship (why are you interested in the project). Relate this to your specific skills (what will you be bringing to the project) and to your current and future research interests (what do you expect to get out of the project).

Other comments: Feel free to write other comments that you find are relevant for your application.

Length: The length of a letter of motivation is typically one page and no more than two pages.

Curriculum vitae
Personal data

• Full name (indicate male/female)
• Current address
• Phone and email
• Date and place of birth
• Citizenship

Language skills

• Summarize your language skills. List your mother tongue and for each additional language indicate your level of understanding/speaking/reading/writing as fluent, fair or basic. Include any relevant language tests.

Education

• Date and place of high school diploma
• Date of enrolment in your university education and the name of the university
• Date and university for your BSc degree
• Date (or expected date) and university of your MSc degree
• Name and contact information of your MSc-thesis advisor

Job experience

• List your job experience (teaching assistant, industrial internships, etc.)
• List of publications
• List your publications and your submitted publications under three headings: Peer review journal papers
• Peer review conference papers/abstracts
• Other publications.

Other

• Feel free to add additional information in your CV that you find relevant for your application.

Facts about PhD studies at DTU

• The duration of the PhD programme is three years.
• The study programme is 30 ECTS (European Credit Transfer System) points.
• The teaching load corresponds to a total of approximately three months.
• The PhD student is an employee of the university, and thus has the right to paid holidays, social security and pension.
• The monthly salary after tax starts from about 2,000 €. See details here.

More information can be found here.

All candidates irrespective of age, gender, race, religion or ethnic background are encouraged to apply.