Doctoral fellow - Department of Information Technology

Technology » Telecommunications technology

Organisation/Company Ghent University Research Field Computer science » Programming Computer science » Other Engineering » Communication engineering Engineering » Electrical engineering Engineering » Systems engineering Engineering » Other Technology » Telecommunications technology Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Country Belgium Final date to receive applications 28 Feb 2026 - 22:59 (UTC) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Department TW05 - Department of Information Technology

Degree Master Computer Science Engineering, Master of Science in Information Engineering Technology, Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, or a related field

Occupancy rate 100%

Vacancy type Research staff

PhD position – Joint wireless communication and localization using UWB radio devices

Ghent University is a top‑ranked University (ranked 90 worldwide according to the Shanghai Ranking) located in Belgium. Employing more than 15,000 people, it is actively involved in education and research, management and administration, as well as technical and social service provision on a daily basis. It is one of the largest, most exciting employers in the area and offers great career opportunities.

With its 11 faculties and more than 85 departments offering state‑of‑the‑art study programmes grounded in research in a wide range of academic fields, Ghent University is a logical choice for its staff and students.

Within the faculty of Engineering and Architecture, the IDLab research group () performs research on
1) connectivity and
2) data science & artificial intelligence. In these research areas we focus on
1) foundations,
2) system design, and
3) applications. IDLab collaborates with many universities and research centres worldwide and jointly develops advanced technologies with industry (R&D centres from international companies, Flanders’ top innovating large companies and SMEs, as well as numerous high‑tech start‑ups). In order to support the research, IDLab created a unique research infrastructure used in numerous national and international collaborations. IDLab is also a core research group of imec, the world‑leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies.

IDLab staff counts about 50 professors, 60 Post Doctoral researchers, 200 PhD researchers and 40 other staff members. These are spread over about 20 research teams.

The research for this PhD position will be conducted in the IDLab research cluster on Intelligent Wireless Networking ().

Many industrial and healthcare applications demand real‑time knowledge of the location, status, and activities of both people and equipment. Traditionally, this has required separate, specialised wireless systems for communication, radar‑based sensing, and localisation—each relying on dedicated hardware. However, the emerging field of joint wireless communication, sensing, and localisation offers a unified approach that combines data transmission with simultaneous environmental awareness and position estimation.

Ultra‑Wideband (UWB) technology, in particular, stands out as a strong candidate for this integration due to its large bandwidth, which enables high‑precision localisation, robust communication, and fine‑grained sensing. In this PhD project, you will develop advanced signal‑processing techniques that empower a single UWB multi‑antenna radio platform to perform all these functions concurrently, significantly enhancing the situational awareness and versatility of deployed wireless systems.

• You study how to implement both localisation and radar sensing capabilities using a single radio platform. Traditional localisation systems typically rely on multiple anchor nodes—often three to four—strategically placed around the perimeter of the coverage area. In contrast, your approach leverages a single infrastructure node equipped with multiple antennas. By analysing the phase,…