PhD Candidate in RF/antenna design for GNSS reflectometry from small satellites

This is NTNU NTNU is a broad-based university with a technical-scientific profile and a focus in professional education. The university is located in three cities with headquarters in Trondheim. At NTNU, 9,000 employees and 43,000 students work to create knowledge for a better world. You will find more information about working at NTNU and the application process here. Video: https://youtu.be/Xt-yHCN5QS0 About the position Are you motivated to take a step towards a doctorate and open up exciting career opportunities? As a PhD Candidate with us, you will work to achieve your doctorate, and at the same time gain valuable experience that qualifies you for a further career in higher education and research, in and outside academia. We are searching for a creative, skilled, and ambitious candidate for our activities on how we can detect objects at sea using GNSS reflectometry. The same system can also be used to detect GNSS jamming and spoofing events from small satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO). The PhD position will be at the NTNU SmallSat Lab, see www.ntnu.edu/smallsat for more information about the lab. Note that two closely related PhD positions, one at the Department of Electronic Systems, NTNU, and one at the Department of Engineering Cybernetics will be announced separately. Your immediate leader will be the Head of Department at NTNU Department of Electronic Systems. About the project The signals originating from the global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) when they are reflected from the Earth, contain information about the geographical area the signals are reflected by. For signals reflected by the ocean, we can infer wave height, sea ice coverage and winds using GNSS-reflectometry (GNSS-R). In this project, we want to go further and investigate if we can use these signals of opportunity to detect objects, such as ships. Actions by so-called “dark ships”, meaning ships that operate with no AIS transponder, may contribute to illegal fishing, trafficking, sabotage and other less desired activities. Currently, there are several systems in use to monitor global ship traffic, each with different properties. Optical systems may provide excellent resolution on a cloud-free day. Synthetic aperture radars (SAR) deliver image products even through clouds, but they are expensive. Our main research question is: How can small and relatively cheap satellites with passive radio payloads utilize reflected signals of opportunity to contribute to a better maritime situational awareness? As a PhD candidate in this project, your work will be to research how this monitoring can be done, and how it can feed into a larger system. Your focus will be on RF- and antenna design for reception of reflected GNSS signals. The research will also involve using software-defined radios (SDR) and digital signal processing for antenna beamforming. The payload may also be used to detect GNSS jamming and spoofing events. The project is funded by the Norwegian Research Council, under the project number 358547. As a PhD candidate, you will collaborate with others in the Small Satellite Lab, in a team with other PhD candidates and researchers within related topics. Duties of the position - Complete the doctoral education until obtaining a doctorate - Carry out research of good quality within the framework described above - Academic publications and popular science dissemination - Participate in the research group SmallSatLab (www.ntnu.edu/smallsat) - Participate in international activities such as conferences and/or research stays at foreign educational institutions - Teaching duties at the department (depending on profile and need) - Other career-promoting work, such as working on smaller related externally funded research projects. Be prepared for changes to your work duties after employment. The candidate will: Conduct research and development of antenna arrays suited for receiving reflected GNSS signals from the Earth’s surface on the feasibility of GNSS-R and other signals of opportunity. Tasks will be literature reviews, simulations, data analysis from similar missions and/or data from project partners. The research will also include planning and conduction of field experiments with corresponding data analysis. Furthermore, the candidate will contribute to the design of a suitable GNSS-R payload, including RF architecture and on-board signal processing system. The research will also involve development of suitable on-board (edge) data processing techniques to analyse GNSS-R recordings for object detection and/or jamming/spoofing detection. Required selection criteria - You must have a relevant Master's degree in electronics, RF-systems, remote sensing/radar, signal processing, aerospace or equivalent. Your course of study must correspond to a five-year Norwegian course, where 120 credits have been obtained at master's level. Master students in their final year can apply, but the master's degree must be obtained and documented before starting the position and no later than October 2026. - You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies and have an average grade from your Master's degree study, or equivalent education, which is equal to B or better compared to N TNU's grading scale . If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic foundation. If you have a weaker grade background, you may be considered if you can document that you are particularly suitable for a PhD education. - You must meet the requirements for admission to the faculty's Doctoral Programme (https://www.ntnu.no/studier/phet) - You must master English as a professional language, both written and orally - Basic knowledge about space systems and small satellites - Knowledge about radio frequency (RF), remote sensing, electromagnetic waves and antenna design - Knowledge about analog and digital RF signal processing PLEASE NOTE: For detailed