Applicants are invited for a double degree PhD fellowship/scholarship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Electrical and Computer Engineering programme. The position is available from 01 September 2026 or later. You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.

The position is part of the MSCA project GreenFieldData - IoRT Data management and analysis for Sustainable Agriculture, ID: 101226371, Call: HORIZON-MSCA-2024-DN-01. Link to the portal of the project https://www.eu4greenfielddata.eu/ 

Note that this is a double degree PhD project. Therefore the employment will be at Aarhus University, but the place of work will be split equally between Aarhus University, Denmark, and Clermont Auverge University, France.

Title:
Optimized IoRT network for enhanced data quality of IoRT cereals production practices

Research area and project description:
Wireless communication systems are being used in many applications, as they offer a flexible solution for maintaining connectivity between connected devices. This PhD focus on the use of wireless communications in agricultural mobile robots in Precision Farming. In such applications, robots need to be supervised during the missions on the field, and in some cases, they also need to be remotely controlled by a human operator. These robots continuously collect data and send it to a human operator who ensures that robots execute the right tasks based on the collected data. The operator’s decisions depend on the quality of data collected by the robots and from other sensors deployed on the field. The quality of communication must be maximized to ensure data are received with the required quality. For example, the requested resolution of collected images should answer the needs of the operator to decide the exact action to take. Even though there has been a lot of progress in telecommunication systems in the past 10 years, wireless communications are still prone to performance degradation depending on the current network conditions. For example, the presence of obstacles or high levels of interference might render the communication link unstable, which has a severe impact on the quality of experience of the operator. Indeed, requiring high-level quality of data during the interval of performance degradation will make the system unresponsive and will further degrade the performance.

This PhD will tackle the issue of real-time monitoring of the state of the network to explain the quality of data the operator receives. Data quality could be explained by differentiating between low and high-quality images on resolution, compression artifacts, or other factors. Once the monitoring system is in place, the work will focus on prediction algorithms, based on machine learning, that allow the system to anticipate performance degradation and inform the operator in real-time to adjust actions depending on the actual quality of data that the communication system can provide. Also, hybrid communication systems will be explored, a solution known for enhancing the robustness of communications, to always ensure minimum quality of communication. For hybrid systems (e.g., cellular and Wi-Fi), the switching mechanism from one system to another will be implemented based on real-time monitoring.

All the mentioned objectives can be listed as follow:

• Provide precision agriculture methods for irrigation and robotized wedding (spraying and mechanical) operations of cereals production 
• Allow real-time monitoring of the state of the network
• Predict the quality of the network with ML
• Provide feedback to the operator about the quality of data to adjust current communication system capacity 

Salary, holiday payment, pension contributions and the like include all employer and employee's taxes and contributions. Thus, figures are before taxes are paid, and taxes may differ depending on individual circumstances. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement, and salary is depending on seniority. Salary includes a non-pensionable PhD supplement. The allowances mentioned in the EU work programme (living allowance, mobility allowance and, if applicable, family allowance) will be part of the salary. Allowance rates can be found in the relevant EU Work Programme (under MSCA doctoral network - Applicable unit contributions), and country correction coefficient can be found in the same document.

Project description: For technical reasons, you must upload a project description. Please simply copy the project description above and upload it as a PDF in the application.

Qualifications and specific competences:
Applicants to the PhD position must have a master’s degree in computer science (120 ECTS).

General critia:

• MSCA Mobility Rule: researchers must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in France for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their date of recruitment
• All researchers recruited in a DN must be doctoral candidates (i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of the recruitment)
• An applicant must have received the equivalent of 300 ECTS with a major in computer science, from which at least 60 ECTS corresponds to a master’s degree. The master’s degree must be granted by a university recognized by the International Association of Universities.
• Scientific excellence to fit the PhD project
• Fluent (oral and written) English skills as the project operates in English language
• Knowledge of the language of the host country may be considered a merit
• Team-mindedness
• Required skills:
• Advanced databases and programming skills
• Advanced operations research skills (optimization, graph theory, logistic models)
• Interdisciplinary work

Place of employment and place of work:
Note that this is a double degree PhD project.

The place of employment is at Aarhus University, but the place of work will be split equally between the two universities involved in the double degree project.

The place of work at Aarhus University is Bygn. 8210, Blichers Allé 208830 Tjele, AU Viborg, Denmark. The place of work at Clermont Auvergne University is Networking and Telecom dept. of IUT Clermont Auvergne, 5 Av. Blaise Pascal, 63170 Aubière, France.

EU eligibility requirements in Marie Curie Doctoral Networks:

• Supported researchers must be doctoral candidates, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of the recruitment. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis, but who have not yet formally been awarded the doctoral degree will not be considered eligible.
• Researchers supported must be enrolled in a doctoral programme leading to the award of a doctoral degree in at least one EU Member State or Horizon Europe Associated Country, and for Joint Doctorates in at least two.
• Recruited researchers can be of any nationality and must comply with the following mobility rule: they must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting beneficiary for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date.
• Compulsory national service, short stays such as holidays and time spent by the researcher as part of a procedure for obtaining refugee status under the Geneva Convention75 are not considered.
• Secondments are eligible for up to one third of the actual months spent implementing the research training activities under the action.
• In case of industrial doctorates, doctoral candidates must spend at least 50% of their fellowship duration in the non-academic sector.’

Contacts:
Applicants seeking further information regarding this PhD position aree invited to contact:

• Claus Aage Grøn Sørensen, claus.soerensen@ece.au.dk (main supervisor)
• Gérard Chalhoub, gerard.chalhoub@uca.fr (co-supervisor)

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide. If answers cannot be found there, please contact:

• admission.gradschool.tech@au.dk

How to apply:
Please follow this link to submit your application.

Application deadline is 15 April 2026 at 23:59 CEST.

Preferred starting date is 01 September 2026.

Please note:

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated. Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be considered.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications.