Postdoc position: Smart Wireless Building Control - University College Cork, Ireland

Post Doctoral Position Announcement

Smart Wireless Building Control - University College Cork, Ireland

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The School of Computer Science and Information Technology at University College Cork is a partner in the Science Foundation Ireland funded ENABLE smart communities research programme. ENABLE's vision is to connect communities with smart urban environments through the Internet of Things. ENABLE's research programme is focused on Internet of Things connectivity, distributed decision making and security and privacy. The application areas include smart buildings, smart environment, smart mobility, and smart networks.

The focus of smart buildings is to enhance performance in terms of energy efficiency, occupant comfort, safety and security. Many older or smaller buildings do not have a building management system or only a very basic one. Cost effective retrofitting of building management systems requires the deployment of wireless sensing and actuation devices to avoid costly cabling costs. Wired include LON, Modbus, BacNet, and Zigbee, EnOcean, and WiFi based devices being the most common wireless technologies. These wireless technologies are short range and require either multi-hop communication or large number of gateway installations. Recent low power wide area wireless networking technologies such as LoRaWAN or LTE-M/NB-IoT may offer an alternative in that they require far less gateway installations and less maintenance, making them potentially more cost effective options for building management.

UCC is now seeking a Post-Doctoral Researcher for a project evaluating the use of low power wide area wireless technologies for building management applications. The project will carry out an evaluation and comparison with traditional wireless technologies in both computer simulation and real experimental deployments. The Post-Doctoral Researcher will model and simulate a range of wireless communication technologies that are in use or have potential use in smart building applications. Requirements for wireless technologies vary from high reliability to low cost and low energy consumption. They must also be able to operate in dense deployments and in a scalable manner. The project is particularly interested in assessing the use of 4G (LTE-M, LTE-NB) and new 5G wireless technologies as well as other low power wide area wireless technologies for a smart building use case and a comparison with low power WiFi and IEEE802.15.4 based technologies.

The successful applicant will be expected to write scientific publications associated with their work and travel to international conferences, workshops, proposal and project meetings. He/she will also be expected to contribute to the development of the Internet of Things research agenda within the school in conjunction with the PI and other academic staff and researchers.

Overview

Post Duration: 2 years

Salary: EU37,221 - EU44,266 p.a. (IUA Salary Scale) plus employer pension contributions

Key Duties and Responsibilities

This title will apply to newly qualified Post-Doctoral Researchers and will be considered as a period of training as the researcher will have dual goals in terms of the research project and their own career development. The researcher will be mentored by a Principal Investigator (PI). It is expected that a researcher would spend not more than 3 years at the Post Doctoral level, subject to the term of the project and would then be eligible to compete for a Senior Post Doctoral post advertised by the University.

The primary focus of the Postdoctoral Researcher will be research however a particular emphasis during this stage should include:

• To work under the direction of the Principal Investigator/Project Leader.
• To undertake task related to specification of wireless building management systems.
• To undertake research tasks related to modelling and simulation as well as experimentation of wireless networking relevant to smart building use cases.
• To conduct a specified programme of research under the supervision and direction of a Principal Investigator/Project Leader.
• To engage in appropriate training and professional development opportunities as required by the Principal Investigator, School or College in order to develop research skills and competencies.
• To gain experience in grant writing.
• To engage in the dissemination of the results of the research in which they are engaged, as directed by, with the support of and under the supervision of a Principal Investigator.
• To become familiar with the publication process.
• To acquire generic and transferable skills (including project management, business skills and postgraduate mentoring/supervision).
• To engage in the wider research and scholarly activities of the research group, School or College.
• To interact closely with postgraduate research students who are studying for a Masters or a PhD and possibly have an agreed role in supporting these students in their day to day research in conjunction with an academic supervisor.
• To carry out administrative work to support the programme of research.
• To carry out additional duties as may reasonably be required within the general scope and level of the post.
• To contribute to costing research grant proposals and assist in the financial management of a research project.

Essential Criteria

Essential criteria for a candidate are as follows:

• A PhD in Electronic/Computer Engineering, Telecommunications Engineering or Computer Science.
• Strong experience in low power wireless networking protocols.
• Strong experience with simulation model development in tools such as with ns-2/3, OMNET++, OPNET, or similar.
• Experience of one or more of 4G (LTE-M, LTE-NB), LoRaWAN, 5G mMTC, low power WiFi, IEEE802.15.4/Zigbee.
• Appropriate technical competence and accomplishment demonstrated through publications in high profile conferences or journals.
• A capability of working within a project team to achieve results.
• Good communication, organisation and interpersonal skills.
• A commitment to gaining practical experience working on a research project.
• Ability to work well within a team.
• Please note that Garda vetting and international police clearance check may form part of the selection process.

Desirable Criteria

Desirable criteria for a candidate are as follows:

• Experience with smart building technologies.
• Experience with distributed automation and control system applications.
• Experience with edge computing concepts.
• Experience of hardware in the loop and real-time simulation.
• Informal enquiries to Prof. Dirk Pesch, Email: d.pesch@cs.ucc.ie

How to Apply

Please submit a short cover letter and C.V. to James Duggan, j.duggan@cs.ucc.ie, using the subject line "ENABLE Smart Communities Application", on or before the closing date 18 July 2019.

Interviews are likely to take place during the week of Monday 29, July 2019.

Prof. Dirk Pesch, PhD SMIEEE
School of Computer Science and IT
Room G.50, Western Gateway Building
University College Cork
Cork, Ireland
Tel. +353 21 4205914
Email: d.pesch@cs.ucc.ie
Web: website linked here