PhD Offer - Advanced Multi-Frequency GNSS-R Statistical Signal Processing @ ISAE-SUPAERO
- Institution: Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), Toulouse, France
- Supervision: Prof. Jordi Vilà-Valls and Prof. François Vincent
- Application: E-mail CV, MSc academic records, cover letter and the names of two referees, to jordi.vila-valls@isae-supaero.fr. Deadline: 18/05/24. Starting date: September/October 2024.
- Mobility: PhD candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity in France for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their date of recruitment.
- Background: C. Lubeigt, "Signal Processing for GNSS Reflectometry", PhD Thesis, ISAE-SUPAERO, France, Feb. 2023.
Full-time 3 year job contract funded by the EU, in the context of the doctoral network GLITTER (12 PhD students), to perform doctoral research in GNSS-R signal processing. The PhD candidate will join a multidisciplinary team and will be supervised by faculty from ISAE-SUPAERO in Toulouse, France. The PhD candidate will benefit from the GLITTER events in order to further improve technical and complementary skills: four one-week training schools, and three workshops. In addition, the PhD candidate will do a research stay (6 months) at the CSIC, Barcelona, Spain.
Global Navigation Satellite Systems-based Reflectometry (GNSS-R) is a powerful way to retrieve information from a reflecting surface (for Earth observation) by exploiting GNSS as signals of opportunity. Depending on i) the sensing platform (ground-based, airborne, spaceborne), ii) the reflecting surface (ice, sea, land), and iii) the number of antennas (typically one for ground-based applications, and two in airborne/spaceborne receivers); the system/receiver provides different results, which allow for different applications. From a signal processing perspective, it is all about the range, Doppler and carrier phase estimation quality. In order to improve the current systems performance and overcome some of their limitations, it is mandatory to increase the resolution and the useful information that can be extracted from such observables. A step further is to consider a distributed sensing device (multiple receivers), which may allow to implement beamforming strategies and advanced processing schemes.
This PhD aims at pushing forward the state-of-the-art GNSS-R receiver design in order to improve the current systems performance and open the door to new applications. The main idea is to take advantage of modernised GNSS signals (i.e., Galileo E5 Alt-BOC) and the recently introduced meta-signal concept (the combination of 2 arbitrary GNSS frequencies treated as a single signal). Indeed, both Alt-BOC and any meta-signal may improve the time resolution, which may allow to use precise carrier phase measurements (ambiguity resolution) in scenarios where this is not possible with state-of-the-art processing. Within this context, the main scientific goal of the PhD thesis is to develop innovative multi-frequency baseband signal processing methods (within the GNSS-R receiver) to obtain precise and robust delay, Doppler and carrier phase measurements.
Requirements for the candidate
Requirements for the candidate
Requirements for the candidate:
- MSc degree in Electrical/Aerospace/Telecommunications Engineering, Computer Science, or related fields.
- Solid mathematical background, outstanding academic records, and excellent communication skills in oral and written English (the candidate will have access to French courses).
- Knowledge on basic signal processing techniques, as well as Matlab/Python programming skills.
- Knowledge on: GNSS; estimation theory and Kalman filtering; statistical analysis; are a plus.