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Graduate Research Assistant

Position Type: Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) - MS/PhD Candidates
Department: Electrical and Computer Engineering Department

Position Summary

Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) located at Washington DC metro area/Arlington – Ballston North of Virginia is looking for high-motivated and focused R&D GRA students to help to realize CCI’s Vision on Advanced Wireless Communication Network to paving the CCI xG Testbed and the O-RAN Open Testing and Integration Center (OTIC) at Virginia Tech (VT). There is a broad range of projects at xG Testbed Laboratory so get started by applying and discussing with team members several of the ongoing projects.

Including, O-RAN, OCUDU, Dynamic Spectrum Sharing, Internet of Things, 5G and Beyond, AI/ML in wireless network, broadband communication, You will have the opportunity to address problems and technologies in the following areas: Transportation, Ports, Warehouse, Smart City, Health Care, Public Safety, Agriculture just to name some. You will be able to explore, create and innovate solutions in both indoor and outdoor environments.

The research will be conducted in the Dr. Aloizio Da Silva research group Wireless xG Testbed, which is internationally renowned for its leading role in the area of O-RAN, AI-RAN, intelligent and autonomous systems. I am looking for 2 MS/PhD candidates with computer network and wireless communication and AI/ML backgrounds to join the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Virginia Tech. The candidate MUST be excited about applied and experimental research and motivated to develop new systems and mechanisms based on hardware and software co-design.

Key Job Responsibilities

The successful candidate will join a Dr Aloizio Da Silva’s proficient and motivated xG Testbed research team in order to carry out cutting edge and impactful research in one of the following topics: AI-RAN, cellular network communication, new radio system, Cloud/Edge computing, Software Defined Radio (i.e. USRPs), Software Defined Network (SDN), Network Function Virtualization (VNF), O-RAN ecosystem, OCUDU, CBRS spectrum, AI/machine learning (ML) solutions for radio intelligent controller, resource allocation, scheduling, and network optimization for battery-operated devices, radio resource slicing for URLLC, eMBB and mMTC communications.

The duties include theoretical analysis, develop proof of concept, AI/ML algorithm design, implementation, AI-RAN deployment and implementation and writing scientific papers in recognized journals and conferences. Job description may encompass the following broad areas:

  • AI-RAN
  • Investigating AI/ML applied at MU-MIMO and Cell-coordination
  • SDR based signal reconstruction and generation on LTE, NR and Other technologies.
  • Familiar with open-source software development using C++ and Python
  • Analyze system designs and provide associated technical recommendations and reports for 5G technologies (3G Partnership Project (3GPP), O-RAN Alliance).
  • Investigate multiple antenna techniques (MAS) for 5G systems for downlink and uplink.
  • MAS techniques include transmit diversity, single user MIMO (SU-MIMO), multi user MIMO (MU-MIMO), Massive MIMO and various MIMO architectures including full baseband, hybrid and RF.
  • Investigation deployment and performance of O-RU, O-CU, O-DU
  • Investigate integration and communication between terrestrial and air-space networks
  • Network slicing orchestration based on Network Function Virtualization, SDN and O-RAN
  • Mobile edge computing for real-time application/ use cases and network function virtualization (NFV)
  • Disaggregated LTE and functional split
  • Zero touch network management
  • Over-The-Air (OTA) operation
  • Open-source srsRAN, OCUDU, AITRAS, AERIAL, OAI, OpenStack, ONOS, O-RAN, ONF

Required Qualifications

  • Background on wireless communication and/or computer network
  • Good understanding of wireless communications, including signal processing, digital modulations, channel estimation, radio frequency.
  • Experience with Python, C, C++
  • Hands on experiment with computer network
  • Good understanding of applied AI/ML
  • Familiar with LTE and 5G technologies in 3GPP standards.
  • Familiar with open-source environment development.
  • Experience with computational tools, including virtual machines, containers, cloud computing, computer networks etc.

Preferred Qualifications

  • Experience with AI/ML applied, computer and telecommunication networks
  • Experience with Linux and Unix systems

Hiring Manager: Dr. Aloizio Da Silva (CCI xG Testbed Director and Research Faculty at ECE Virginia Tech)
Email address: aloiziops@vt.edu