Software-defined radio for Satellite Communications

Applications are invited for a PhD studentship in software-defined radio (SDR) applied to a specialised satellite communication application. The successful applicant will be based within the Telecommunications Research Centre in the Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering at the University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland. The student will be supervised by Dr Jacqueline Walker and Dr Bob Strunz. The studentship is open from October 2017 and will remain open until filled.
Many parts of the infrastructure for modern life, most notably mobile telephone networks and power supply grids, rely on accurate timing to one microsecond or better for continued smooth functioning, often at sites which are typically widely geographically distributed across an entire national territory. Over the last fifteen years, the timing source for these applications has been GPS which, apart from providing an accurate positioning and navigation capability, also provides a time signal ultimately traceable to UTC maintained by national timing laboratories worldwide. Two Way Satellite Time and Frequency Transfer (TWSTFT) is used between national timing laboratories to maintain UTC using a regular schedule of timeslots of several minutes to exchange timing data between laboratories over a satellite link. Currently, these laboratories use expensive, hand-built equipment, but now there is the possibility to develop SDR alternatives which would be cheaper to produce and more flexible in use including allowing for use as a receive-only modem which could be used by customers for receiving time services over satellite links.
The goal of the project is to develop equipment using an SDR platform and open source software such as GNURadio. The approach will be to build in both flexibility and configurability while still providing the precision and accuracy required for a time transfer application. Apart from assisting with the development of the modem, an important focus of the research project for the applicant will be developing and testing the software for the real-time post-processing of the received data for the two-way time transfer process. Ultimate testing of the developed equipment and software over a live satellite link is also envisaged.
Applicants should have a good (I or 2.1) undergraduate degree or a Masters degree in Electrical Engineering or similar with a strong background and interest in signal processing, communications theory and RF (desirable). The ideal candidate will be comfortable working in a Linux environment, have good programming skills (C/C++, Python) and knowledge of Matlab.