The University of Twente
The University of Twente is an entrepreneurial research university, located about 200 km from Amsterdam in Enschede, a city in Twente, the garden of the Netherlands with excellent recreation facilities. Organized over 5 faculties, the UT offers 20 educational programs ranging from applied physics, public and business administration, communication studies and diverse programs in engineering technology. Research takes place within the context of institutes and focuses, among other things, on nanotechnology, information and communication technology (CTIT), biomedical technology, policy studies, construction management & engineering, and mechanics. More than 7,000 students and 3,000 staff members live work and recreate at the UT, the Netherlands’ only campus university with a park-like atmosphere and numerous sporting facilities.
Research institutes
The research will be carried out in the Control Engineering (CE) laboratory of the faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EWI), which is embedded among other in the Institute of Mechanics Processes And Control Twente (IMPACT).
The Control Engineering group of the
University of Twente has a vacancy for
University of Twente has a vacancy for
PhD student in the project ‘ROSE’
Sensor networks are one of the most important technologies in the 21st century; in particular, with recent advances in sensor-equipped autonomous mobile robots, mobile robotic sensor networks are becoming one of the most strategically important technologies worldwide and have great potential to be applied to infrastructure security, environment and habitat monitoring, industrial sensing, traffic control and so on. One of the greatest challenges in the application of mobile robotic sensor networks is that the performance of such a network is constrained by the limited available energy supply usually provided by the batteries carried by each robotic sensor. It is therefore important to consider energy scavenging techniques in the design of the systems. The aim of ROSE is to develop new energy-efficient design methodologies and novel control strategies for robotic sensor networks. The key is to take a multidisciplinary and integrative approach by jointly considering the hardware level of mobile sensor-equipped robotic devices and the system level of wireless coordination of groups of mobile robotic sensors. For the design of mobile sensor-integrated robotic devices, research will focus on taking full advantage of newly developed sensors, methodology to harvest and optimize energy sources and integrate such sensors with mobile robotic platforms. With optimal energy consumption and a proper system design, the platforms to be developed will be able to operate in complex, time-varying, unknown, harsh and hazardous environment and acquire data reliably via ground penetration radars (GPR), ultrasound imagers, magnetic field detectors and other sensors. Parallel to the development of each individual energy-conscious robotic sensor, a system level assault on the energy efficient control of sensor networks will also be carried out. To be more precise, wireless communication protocols and distributed coordination algorithms will be developed specifically for swarms of robotic sensors using ideas from passive systems and port-Hamiltonian systems theory. The proposed research work will make direct contribution to the IJkdijk project for which the robotic sensors and the envisioned net- work protocols and algorithms can be used to monitor the dikes. Dike monitoring is an example of a broad range of potential applications of robotic sensor networks for which our proposed research will have fundamental and practical implications to energy-efficiency and robustness, under limitations imposed by the informational structures, physical embodiment, the external world, and their interactions.
About the project
Within this project one of the Ph.D. students will be employed at the Control Laboratory. This Ph.D. student will be responsible for the mechatronic development of the robot including energy harvesting, local control and mechatronic design. The other Ph.D. student who will be employed at the RuG will be mostly involved in the distributed control issues. The team will closely work together and have regular meetings.
What we ask
An MSc or comparable degree in engineering with demonstrated abilities in the
fields of research described above: modeling, control and mechanical design. Good knowledge of the English language in written and spoken form. Ability to perform research individually and also to work in a team.
fields of research described above: modeling, control and mechanical design. Good knowledge of the English language in written and spoken form. Ability to perform research individually and also to work in a team.
What we offer
Gross monthly salary for the PhD position range from 2042 to 2612 Euro. In addition to this, we offer a holiday allowance (amounts to 8%), an end-of-year bonus (amounts to 8,3 %), various sporting and cultural facilities at reduced rate, medical insurance at a reduced rate.
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Contact information
Applications can be sent via email to the secretarial office of Control Engineering ce@ewi.utwente.nl before the 1st of March 2010 and mention the vacancy number 10/005 of this vacancy.
Applications should be received by us, not later than 1 March 2010.
Please send your applications to: CESecretary@ewi.utwente.nl, and mention the vacancy number 10/005 of this vacancy.
