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NSF PAWR Project Office Internship Position

This position has been filled, but it's an example of what types of positions we will offer.

CCi researcher Aloizio DaSilva is seeking a hands-on internship candidate for Fall 2024 to work on deployment of experiments in one of four platforms. This is a unique opportunity for students interested in developing and leveraging their hands-on experience on testbeds.

The candidate will actively collaborate with other researchers within the Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) Project Office and Virginia Tech, as well as with our external collaborators in academia, government and industry.

Key Job Responsibilities

The candidate will join the PAWR Project Office team and the proficient and motivated xG Testbed research team led by DaSilva (NSF PAWR Technical Project Manager, CCI xG Testbed Director and Virginia Tech Researcher Faculty) with the purpose of conducting cutting edge and impactful work on: 

  • Open Radio Access Network (O-RAN).
  • Wireless network infrastructure.
  • Software defined radio (SDR) for cellular communication networks. 

Duties will include design, deployment, execution and data collection of experiments in one of the National Science Foundation (NSF) PAWR platforms.

This position is 80 percent remote and 20 percent in-person at Virginia Tech Research Center in Arlington, Va

Preferred Requirements

  • Basic knowledge of wireless/cellular networks, Linux, docker containers.
  • Graduate or undergraduate student enrolled in a U.S.-based university.

Key Job Activities

  • Deployment, implementation, analysis and integration of hardware and software at NSF PAWR Testbed architecture (67 percent).
  • Generate data-set (23 percent).
  • Support use case demonstration (5 percent).
  • Deliver technical presentations and reports (5 percent).

For more information about the position and how to apply, contact CCI xG Testbed Director Aloizio DaSilva at aloiziops@vt.edu.

About the PAWR Project

The Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research program is enabling experimental exploration of new wireless devices, communication techniques, networks, systems, and services that will revolutionize the nation’s wireless ecosystem while sustaining US leadership and economic competitiveness for decades to come. 

The PAWR Project Office located in Washington, D.C., is managing this $100 million public-private partnership to deploy and manage up to four city-scale research testbeds.

  • The POWDER-RENEW project is a collaboration between the University of Utah, Rice University, and Salt Lake City, with broad support from community, municipal and state leadership. The purpose of the POWDER testbed is to enable innovative research across numerous technical areas including radio development for advanced networks including 5G, Radio Access Network (RAN) architectures, network orchestration models, Massive MIMO, and much more. 
  • COSMOS is partnering with New York City, Silicon Harlem, City College of New York, University of Arizona and IBM, to bring this advanced wireless testbed to life in New York City. The testbed will cover 1 square mile in a vibrant, densely-populated neighborhood in West Harlem. The technical focus of the COSMOS platform is on ultra-high-bandwidth and low-latency wireless communications, with tightly coupled edge computing, a type of cloud computing enabling data processing at the edge of the network.
  • AERPAW is a first-of-its-kind aerial wireless experimentation platform with the goal to accelerate the integration of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) into the national air-space, and to enable new advanced wireless features for unmanned aerial system (UAS) platforms, such as flying base stations for hot spot wireless connectivity. 
  • ARA is establishing its wireless living lab across Iowa State University, the city of Ames, and surrounding farms and rural communities in Central Iowa. With a deeply programmable infrastructure, ARA features a wide range of wireless technologies as well as an application focus on precision agriculture in both crop and livestock farms.

For more information about PAWR, contact CCI xG Testbed Director Aloizio DaSilva at aloiziops@vt.edu.