2021 Call

Application deadline: November 15-th (noon) 2021
Requirements: students enrolled at the first semester of the second year of the MSc track, with 50 CFUs and 28 GPA
Application: website
Available positions:
  • 9 Automation and Control Engineering
  • 4 Biomedical Engineering
  • 16 Computer Science and Engineering
  • 5 Electric Engineering
  • 5 Electronic Engineering
  • 4 Telecommunication Engineering


Research topics in Biomedical Engineering

Proposers: Valentina Corino, Anna Maria Bianchi
Topic: Automatic identification of failure in knee replacement
Description: Automatic identification of failure in knee replacement: an artificial intelligence approach The research includes the development of artificial intelligence algorithms for the classification of X-ray images of patients with knee prosthesis. The aim is to automatically detect different causes of knee prosthetic loosening from conventional plain radiographs. The research will be developed in collaboration with Humanitas Hospital.
Compatible tracks: BIO, CSE
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Luca Mainardi, Andrea Farabbi
Topic: Analysis of the relationships between Error Potentials, level of attention and environment
Description: In human-machine interaction, it is of great relevance to understand when the machine makes a mistake and correct it immediately. To this aim, Error Potentials (EP), i.e. changes in EEG pattern elicited when an error is made or you see someone/something else to make it, can be analysed. The research will adopt Deep Learning methods to enhance EP from background EEG and will evaluate the relationship between EP, level of attention and environment. EP will be evoked by a videogame in various immersive environments (Screen, Hololens, Virtual Theatre). Results have applications in different fields such as detection of attention deficit, BCI applications, etc… Students will be involved in data acquisitions at BBB Lab and in the POLIMI Virtual Theatre.
Compatible tracks: BIO, CSE
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Luca Mainardi, Guadalupe Isla
Topic: Automatic computation of cardiovascular arrhythmIc risk from ECG Data of COVID-19 patients
Description: Given the impact of COVID on the myocardium, the recent pandemic outbreak has made clear the need to carefully monitor cardiovascular risk to prevent sudden cardiac death and drug-induced proarrhythmic effects in the future management of the disease. The research aim is to develop Machine Learning tools to identify early signs of cardiac risks induced by COVID or drug treatments in COVID patients.
Compatible tracks: BIO, CSE
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Emiliano Votta, Simone Saitta
Topic: Deep learning for medical image analysis
Description: Supervised learning approaches for the automation of medical image analysis tasks have reached unprecedented results, but require large densely annotated datasets. Weakly-supervised or unsupervised learning approaches have the potential to play a dominant role in the next future of biomedical imaging applications. In this context, we design and implement new methods for overcoming the main limitations of succesful traditional approaches for medical image processing.
Compatible tracks: BIO, CSE
Positions available: 1



Research topics in Automation and Control Engineering

Proposers: Matteo Corno, Lorenzo Fagiano, Simone Formentin, Luigi Piroddi, Maria Prandini, Sergio Savaresi, Riccardo Scattolini, Mara Tanelli.
Topic: Theory and application of control systems
The research area includes all the topics related to the theory and application of modeling, control, identification and learning methods for dynamic systems. Applications include, but are not limited to, energy systems, smart grids, vehicles.
Compatible tracks: ATM, CSE, MTM
Positions available: 3
Proposers: Paolo Bolzern, Renato Casagrandi, Patrizio Colaneri, Gian Paolo Incremona, Lorenzo Mari
Topic: Modelling, optimization and control of complex systems
The research area includes all topics related to modelling, optimization and control for complex systems possibly interacting over a network or involving hybrid dynamics. Examples include social, biological, epidemiological, transportation and power networks.
Compatible tracks: ATM, CSE, MTM
Positions available: 3
Proposers: Luca Bascetta, Gianbattista Gruosso, Luca Ferrarini, Michele Norgia, Paolo Rocco.
Topic: Robotics, mechatronics, and industrial automation
The research area includes topics related to modelling and control of robots (industrial, mobile, aerial) and mechatronic systems in general. The broader areas of industrial automation, building automation and industrial measurement are included as well. Experimental facilities to validate the theoretical results will be available.
Compatible tracks: ATM, CSE, MECC
Positions available: 3


Research topics in Computer Science and Engineering

Proposers: Francesco Amigoni
Topic: Multirobot Systems
Teams of cooperative robots can provide effective and efficient solutions for performing tasks in warehouses and in applications like environment monitoring, search and rescue, and patrolling. Such multirobot systems present challenges in the development and learning of decision-theoretic planning tools to accomplish the tasks with the appropriate level of autonomy.
Proposers: Anna Bernasconi
Topic: Variant hunting tool
SARS-CoV-2 variants (such as Alpha/Delta) are named by "variant hunters" who use time and Excel files to manually identify new, possibly dangerous, mutations that deviate from common behaviors. In this thesis, we design and implement methods for supporting such scientists in automatically monitoring SARS-CoV-2 sequence data and isolating new variant candidates that emerge from existing variants.
Proposers: Andrea Bonarini
Topic: Autonomous Robot Actor
We are implementing robot actors able to improvise on stage with people. They are now missing natural language (NL) ability. The robot uses Deep Learning to interpret the emotional status and the activity of the human partner and generates its own action so to produce interesting interaction. The aim of the candidate will be to add real-time NL capabilities to the robot.
Proposers: Giacomo Boracchi
Topic: Deep Learning Models for Non Matrix Data
Machine/Deep Learning models are very powerful in time series and images. These data are arranged over a grid, while point clouds (PC) are a set of 3D points. Being scattered in nature, PCs are not easily mapped to arrays, and require specific DL models. The thesis concerns the design of new convolutional layers for PCs , and techniques to explain (saliency maps) and generate (GANs) PCs.
Proposers: Cinzia Cappiello
Topic: Context-aware data preparation for data analytics
Data preparation, i.e., methods and techniques for data transformation and error detection and correction is an important phase to guarantee the quality of the analytics results especially in smart environments, where the variety and the uncertainty of data sources are increasing. The thesis focuses on the design and realization of an adaptive platform able to prepare input data on the basis of the analysis to perform.
Proposers: Luca Cassano
Topic: Design and Analysis of Fault Tolerant Solutions for Machine Learning Applications
The project has a twofold goal: i) defining new methods for the analysis of the vulnerability to faults of machine learning systems to identify criticalities and ii) defining advanced fault handling strategies tailored on the outcomes of the previous analysis. The final goal is to optimize system costs (area/time/power overhead) and achieve enhanced fault classification capabilities.
Proposers: Stefano Ceri
Topic: Reactive Data Management for large Knowledge Graphs
Large knowledge graphs evolve over time irregularly, through the injection of knowledge chunks. This thesis aims at building methods for effectively capturing changes within graphs, using an extended Datalog for knowledge representation; possible applications, in collaboration with Banca D’Italia, include changes of company controls detected over the large graphs of Italian company ownerships.
Proposers: Sara Comai
Topic: "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise." – Benjamin Franklin
Monitoring our activities for improving quality of life and well-being is a current trend. The thesis focuses on the analysis of sleeping quality data obtained from the fusion of different non-intrusive (non-conventional) sensors data with monitorable lifestyles data. Brainstorming with researchers from SSH disciplines will be proposed to understand the impact on our society.
Proposers: Gianpaolo Cugola
Topic: Large scale data processing: from IoT devices to the cloud, passing through the edge
The "information society" is producing data at an unprecedented pace. In the meanwhile, computing has evolved from PCs to servers, to cloud, up to covering a continuum that spans from mobile and IoT devices to the cloud, passing through the edge nodes. Scope of this work is to propose new data processing platforms that could leverage this computing continuum in a seamless and transparent way.
Proposers: Franca Garzotto
Topic: Conversational agent for data science
Data science often isn't accessible to scientists who lack computational skills. GeCo conversational agent combines NLU and AutoML to provide a platform to build scientific workflows starting from questions in natural language. The student will design and implement methods to improve the current prototype in terms of understanding user's requests and automatically generating analysis pipelines.
Proposers: Nicola Gatti
Topic: Algorithmic Game Theory and Multiagent Learning
This area, central in Artificial Intelligence, studies of the strategic interactions among agents, aiming at prescribing the best strategy for the players (Libratus), or at designing interaction mechanisms that are robust when agents are selfish and computationally efficient (kidney exchange), or at learning how to exploit the strategy of an agent that is not playing at the equilibrium.
Proposers: Alessandro Margara
Topic: Distributed data-intensive platforms
As data guides decision-making in increasingly many areas, software applications become data-intensive: they need to handle large volumes of heterogeneous data continuously produced by humans, IoT devices, and other software systems. Our group investigates innovative solutions to ease the development of distributed platforms to acquire, store, analyze, and serve data at scale.
Proposers: Davide Martinenghi
Topic: Big Data and Ethics
The fifth "V" of Big Data, value, requires suitable techniques for querying data sources, while focusing on their quality. Accuracy, correctness, ranking, and many other aspects of quality are affected by ethics-related issues, such as transparency, lack of bias, fairness, diversity. We aim to enforce such properties to achieve an ethical processing of Big Data, while still taming their sheer size.
Proposers: Marco Masseroli
Topic: Bioinformatics
The Bioinformatics research area is focused on big life science data and information of different types increasingly available in many heterogeneous sources, and their best management, integration, mining and analysis with different machine learning techniques for knowledge discovery, to better understand complex biological phenomena.
Proposers: Maristella Matera
Topic: Automatically generating Conversational Agents to query Data Bases
CODEX is a framework to automatically generate Conversational Agents to query structured data sources, starting from an annotated logical schema. In this thesis the student will improve the framework by extending the complexity of queries to explore genomic data, and analysing the impact of these new features on the NLU pipeline and on the quality of the final user experience.
Proposers: Matteo Matteucci
Topic: Perception and Deep Learning in Autonomous Robots and Vehicles
Autonomous robots and vehicles need to perceive their surroundings to make informed decisions about their course of action. Perception has recently extended from geometric perception to semantics thanks to the use of Deep Learning models capable of interpreting images and pointclouds semantics. Can this be pushed forward? How semantics can help in a better geometrical understanding and vice versa.
Proposers: Antonio Miele, Francesco Amigoni
Topic: Enabling Distributed Intelligence in Distributed Edge Devices for Smart Environments
Oniro is a distributed operating system for mobile/IoT devices envisioned by Huawei and other partners. In such a scenario, this proposal aims at designing a middleware for dispatching workloads on a distributed architecture composed of several IoT, mobile and edge devices. The project will focus on intelligent orchestration of the workload in a dynamically changing ecosystem.
Proposers: Luca Mottola
Topic: The Battery-less Internet of Things
Energy harvesting is redefining the energy constraints of traditional battery-powered IoT devices. However, such sources of energy are generally erratic, causing systems to shutdown unpredictably. We devise new software techniques to render IoT software immune to periods of energy unavailability.
Proposers: Gianluca Palermo
Topic: High Performance Virtual Screening for Drug Discovery in Urgent Computing Scenario
The project wants to find solutions to accelerate the virtual screening process in drug discovery. The project considers the urgent computing scenario, similar to COVID-19, where the computation has to rely on HPC resources. Possible research directions are on code optimization strategies, exploitation of heterogeneous resources (e.g. GPUs) or quantum computers, and machine learning techniques.
Proposers: Barbara Pernici
Topic: Social informatics
Analyze possible biases in datasets, in particular images, collected from social media and labelled with crowdsourcing, creating techniques to assess imprecision. The focus is on data collected for social good, focusing on multirisk situations for the population (e.g. floods and pandemics), studied in the EU project Crowd4SDG (https://pernici.faculty.polimi.it/it/crowd4sdgpolimi/).
Proposers: Christian Pilato
Topic: Acceleration of big data applications on heterogeneous platforms
This research area aims at developing methodologies and prototype CAD tools for supporting the acceleration of big data applications on FPGA-based architectures. These methods will focus mostly on the implementation of efficient and secure data management techniques, including intelligent memory architectures and online monitors.
Proposers: Pietro Pinoli
Topic: Explainable AI approaches for drug repurposing
Finding novel usages for approved drugs is paramount in pharmacological research as it reduces time and cost of developing new therapies. Many ML methods have been used for drug repurposing. However the lack of interpretability of ML methods limits the achievement of their full potential. This thesis aims to develop explainable AI approaches to drug repurposing.
Proposers: Marcello Restelli
Topic: Reinforcement Learning
Reinforcement learning is a learning paradigm concerned with learning to control a system so as to maximize a numerical performance measure that expresses a long-term objective. Reinforcement learning is rapidly gaining attention both from academic and industrial communities due to recent successes in a variety of sequential decision-making problems.
Proposers: Manuel Roveri
Topic: Privacy-preserving machine and deep learning
The aim of the research is the design and development of novel machine and deep learning paradigms able to operate on encrypted data, hence preserving the privacy of data sources (e.g., medical information, sensitive data, etc..). Such novel paradigms will pave the way for privacy-preserving systems (e.g., based on Cloud and Edge computing) supporting machine and deep-learning abilities.
Proposers: Fabio Salice
Topic: Multi-user Activity Recognition through Unobtrusive Indoor Monitoring System
The project concerns the application of AI techniques and information from SSH to detect individual actions and activities (Human Activity Recognition) in scenarios where several people, monitored without any wearable device (unobtrusive), live in close contact in environments that also have common spaces. The problem is of current relevance for the support of autonomous life, open and challenging.
Proposers: Mattia Salnitri, Pierluigi Plebani
Topic: Design of energy efficient and secure business processes
Business processes can specify security behavior of components of information systems. Unluckily, security mechanisms employed in business processes add a layer of complexity impacting on the amount of energy used and, therefore, on the environment. The goal is to study how to design business processes that minimize the energy footprint while preserving security requirements satisfaction.
Proposers: Francesco Trovò
Topic: Online Learning
Online learning is a branch of machine learning dealing with problems in which data become available incrementally, or it may be unfeasible to learn over the entire dataset. The problems commonly addressed by online learning techniques are from finance, commerce, marketing, recommendation systems.
Proposers: Monica Vitali
Topic: Green Information Systems for Greener Artificial Intelligence
The project investigates the main factors contributing to the environmental footprint of AI applications (data, models, infrastructure). Focusing on distributed machine learning models executed in distributed cloud to edge infrastructures, the candidate will propose methods and algorithms for improving the energy efficiency of training, while preserving the accuracy level of the resulting models.
Proposers: Vittorio Zaccaria
Topic: Low-power and low-energy secure digital embedded systems.
Embedded systems are increasingly integrated into our daily life and are more than ever before characterized by security concerns. This research aims at investigating the trade-offs between the power/energy consumption of embedded systems and their security/confidentiality level and devising enabling tools and methodologies.



Research topics in Electric Engineering

Proposers: S. A. Pignari
Topic: Electromagnetic Compatibility in Power Electronics
Description: Contact the proposer for the details.
Compatible tracks: ELT
Positions available: 1
Proposers: F. Grassi
Topic: Electromagnetic Compatibility of CubeSats
Description: Contact the proposer for the details.
Compatible tracks: ELT
Positions available: 1
Proposers: A. Ferrero
Topic: Measurement in the Smart Grid
Description: Contact the proposer for the details.
Compatible tracks: ELT
Positions available: 1
Proposers: S. Grillo
Topic: MDC Microgrid control in the Smart Grid framework
Description: Contact the proposer for the details.
Compatible tracks: ELT
Positions available: 1
Proposers: L. Di Rienzo
Topic: Electromagnetic modeling of underground and submarine power cables
Description: Contact the proposer for the details.
Compatible tracks: ELT
Positions available: 1

Research topics in Electronics Engineering

Proposers: G. Bertuccio
Topic: Semiconductor Radiation Detectors and Integrated Circuits for Scientific Applications
Semiconductor Radiation Detectors (SRD) are widely employed in fundamental sciences and have numerous medical and industrial applications. The continuous increase in complexity and performance of new SRD require advances in Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC) for signal readout and processing. The research activity can be directed through one of these two paths: 1) the theoretical and experimental study of the most advanced semiconductor radiation detectors in Silicon and in Compound Semiconductors (GaAs, CdTe, CdZnTe, SiC) or b) the design of low-noise and low-power CMOS ASIC for SRD. Both topics are oriented to applications toward Synchrotron X-ray sources and Space Telescopes for Astrophysics or to non-destructive material analysis in Industries. The research activities are made in collaboration with the National Institute for Nuclear Physics (INFN), the National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the Italian Space Agency (ASI), the European Space Agency (ESA), Elettra Synchrotron in Trieste and some Companies.
Compatible tracks: ELN
Positions available: 1
Proposers: C. Guazzoni
Topic: Development of an innovative high-rate tagging system for radioactive beams
The activity proposed to the candidates frames in the upgrade of a research facility of INFN (Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare), at Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, in Catania (Italy) towards high-luminosity radioactive beams for nuclear physics experiments. Politecnico di Milano research staff, in collaboration with INFN, Sezione di Milano, Sezione di Catania and Laboratori Nazionali del Sud, is in charge of the development of a high-rate radiation-tolerant tagging system, equipped with a dedicated VLSI frontend. The research project will start January 2021 and lasts for at least three years, therefore has the adequate time span for a M.Sc. + PhD activity. The student will collaborate in the detector qualification, ASIC design and qualification, interconnection and mechanical assembly design and detection system modeling. Last but not least the student will take part in the beam tests, either in presence or in virtual connection, depending on the present situation. The students (up to 2) will have the possibility to shape the focus of the research activity according to their skills and interests and to work independently on different aspects of the project or jointly collaborate. The student will have the possibility to work in a real research lab, with hands-on approach combined with a strong theoretical background in the field of radiation detectors and low-noise frontend electronics, sharing the daily lab life with PhD students, junior and experienced researchers.
Compatible tracks: ELN
Positions available: 2
Proposers: C. Fiorini, M. Carminati
Topic: Development of innovative detection systems and readout ASICs for fundamental physics and medical imaging applications
The student will be involved in stimulating team activity carried out within international collaborations and concerning the development of innovative detection systems and readout ASICs to be used in experiments for both fundamental physics (nuclear physics, neutrinos search, X-ray astronomy..) and applied physics (analytical instrumentation for material analysis, industrial applications). Projects of the team regard also the development of sensors and electronics for medical imaging applications. During the program, the student will have the opportunity to contribute to the development of a broad range of components, circuits and systems, from radiation sensors, to low-noise integrated circuits, to data acquisition systems, to a complete instrument ans its use in the target application.
Compatible tracks: ELN
Positions available: 2
Proposers: A. Castoldi
Topic: Developement of novel Germanium Drift Detectors
The research activity is focused on the study and development of the first Germanium Drift Detector (GDD) that will represent a break-through in the field of imaging and spectroscopy of X- and gamma-rays. Germanium is one of the purest semiconductor crystals available today with excellent carrier transport properties and high detection efficiency of X and gamma rays that makes it the ideal candidate for such task. The design of novel 'drift' topologies, i.e. based on 3D shaping of the electric field inside the semiconductor volume, combined with the unique material properties has the potential of unprecedented low-noise performance on a wide energy range. The student will be collaborate in the development of the first prototypes of Germanium drift detectors and of the low-noise readout electronics and will participate in the conduction of their experimental characterization as well as in the analysis and interpretation of the data. The research activity is conducted in collaboration with international partners in the frame of the project DESIGN: European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF), European X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL), LABEC Firenze.
Compatible tracks: ELN, BIO
Positions available: 1
Proposers: F. Villa, A. Tosi, F. Zappa
Topic: Microelectronics, devices, and electronic systems for 2D imaging and 3D ranging
1. "ELECTRON DEVICES: design, simulation, and fabrication of single-photon detectors in Si, InGaAs/InP and Ge". The research aims at conceiving new microelectronic sensors for detecting single photons in the 200nm-1,700nm range, with picosecond-timing precision. Different semiconductors (Si, Ge, InGaAs, InP, GaAs) and novel processing (planar, three-dimensional stacking, wafer-to-wafer bonding, vertically-grown micro-crystals) will be pioneered. Funding from European Commission “Horizon 2020” programmes, USA DARPA agency, national funds.
2. "MICROELECTRONICS: schematics, layout, fabrication and validation of ASIC chips for ststems-on-chips". The research aims at integrating detector arrays, in-pixel mixed-signal electronics and on-chip digital processing into one single chip, for imagers providing 2D movies at high (>100,000 frames/s) rates, single-photon sensitivity, and 3D (distance-resolved) maps of objects in a scene. Different microelectronic technologies (CMOS, BCD, and Si-Ge) and foundries will be exploited. Funding from “Horizon2020” EC programmes, NATO “Safety for Peace” programme, JPL-NASA agency.
3. "ELECTRONIC SYSTEMS: development and system integration of advanced electronic systems for sensing and imaging". The research aims at prototyping electronic products with FPGA, µC, and DSP devices, for different applications (e.g., time-of-flight 3D automotive vision, quantum optics experiments, quantum computing chips, non-invasive biomedical parameter acquisitions). Various methodologies, hw/fw/sw co-partitions, devices (Xilinx, Altera, ARM-Cortex) and high-level languages will be exploited. Funding from JPL-NASA agency, European Southern Observatory, and European Space Agency).
Compatible tracks: ELN
Positions available: 3
Proposers: A. Gulinatti, I. Rech
Topic: Single-photon detectors and applications
Recently, the field of single-photon detection has experienced an exponential growth due to the emergence of a large number of scientific and industrial applications that require the capability of detecting the light down to the single-photon level. Among them are laser ranging, single-molecules analysis, and optical quantum computing, which are regarded as key enabling technologies to address some of today?s most challenging problems like the development of new drugs, the study of climatic changes and the autonomous driving. The Single-Photon Avalanche Diode (SPAD) has emerged as the detector of choice for these applications thanks to its remarkable performance. However, many progresses are still needed to bring these applications in everyday life. The research activity is aimed at addressing these limitations by developing innovative solutions for the detection of single photons with unprecedented capabilities in terms of photon detections efficiency, timing jitter, spectral sensitivity, and integrability into large arrays of detectors. The activity will involve one or more of these fields: design and simulation of new detector structures, study and modeling of unexplored detector properties, development of new experimental characterization techniques, design of new front-end circuitry, development of application specific architectures.
Compatible tracks: ELN
Positions available: 2
Proposers: D. Ielmini, C. Monzio Compagnoni, A.S. Spinelli
Topic: Emerging memory devices and in-memory computing
The future evolution of integrated electronic technologies will see a closer interaction of logic and memory devices, overcoming the traditional design schemes in the attempt to constantly reduce power consumptions and improve system performance. This is today triggering the research both on new, fast and energy-efficient memory devices that could be integrated directly in logic processes and on new computational forms that could be directly performed inside memory arrays. The proposed projects for the Honours Program will make contributions to these two research lines. In the former, activities will be focused on the experimental, numerical and theoretical investigation of the basic physics, the working principles and the performance of emerging memory devices, such as nanoscale ferroelectric memories and magnetoresistive memories. In the second, in-memory computing will be investigated both theoretically and experimentally, focusing on hardware neuromorphic systems exploiting different types of memory arrays, e.g., floating-gate, resistive and phase-change arrays, as artificial synaptic arrays. The results of the projects will pave the way to the future evolution of micro and nanoelectronics.
Compatible tracks: ELN
Positions available: 3
Proposers: G. Ferrari
Topic: Innovative Integrated Instrumentation for Nanoscience
The constant scaling down of the devices paves the way to the design of innovative sensors that profit from the reduced physical size to reach a high spatial resolution or detect few molecules or electrons. However, they pose new challenges to their characterization and measure due to the corresponding reduction of the electrical signals, in many cases down to femtoAmpere currents and sub-attoFarad capacitances. The sensitivity required to the electronic instrumentation can be obtained by co-design the device and the reading electronics, ideally merging into a single miniaturized integrated device, thus optimizing their coupling. The group is involved in different projects requiring the design of such custom electronic instruments and smart sensors in the field of biomedical diagnostic tools and quantum information.
Compatible tracks: ELN,BIO
Positions available: 1
Proposers: D. Natali
Topic: Plastic Electronics
Organic semiconductors are carbon-based compounds that can be conveniently processed from solution at almost room temperature. As a consequence, it is possible to manufacture devices, circuits and systems by means of non-lithographic techniques, such as inkjet printing, screen printing, flexography to cite but a few. The benefits of printed electronics include: low cost, mechanical flexibility, ease of production and integration, and the possibility of addressing a variety of non-conventional applications: flexible displays, image sensors, bio-sensors, smart labels, RF-ID tags, edible electronics, wearable electronics, and more. The research encompasses all the aspects, issues and challenges of plastic electronics: the fundamentals of charge carrier transport related to the energetically disordered landscape sampled by carriers; device modeling and simulation through innovative ad-hoc developed code; printing process engineering; logic, analog, optoelectronic circuits and systems design, realization and characterization.
Compatible tracks: ELN, BIO
Positions available: 1
Proposers: M. Sampietro
Topic: Smart sensor systems for silicon photonics and optical processors
Photonic technologies have since long dreamed of non-invasive monitoring tools to inspect the light inside optical waveguides. By exploiting photon interaction with intra-gap energy states localized at the waveguide surface, we demonstrate that light intensity can be monitored by measuring the electric conductance of the silicon waveguide through a capacitive access to the waveguide via the SiO cladding. This approach realizes a ContactLess Integrated Photonic Probe (CLIPP), that is simple, inherently CMOS compatible, noninvasive and scalable to hundreds of probing points per chip. Light monitoring with a sensitivity of -30 dBm and a dynamic range of 40 dB is demonstrated in waveguides and high-Q resonators, and for the tuning of coupled-resonator optical filters. The CLIPP concept has been demonstrated on both silicon (Si) and indium phosphide (InP) photonic platforms, and has been utilized in several different applications, including for instance automatic fiber-to-waveguide alignment, wavelength tuning and stabilization of micro-ring resonators (MRRs) , light-path tracking and feedback-control of switch fabrics. The Thesis will develop all the electronics to read the CLIPP sensors and to feedback control the operating point of the many optical devices in a Photonic chip. The group is now involved in the European Project STREAMS (http://ict-streams.eu/ ) having the overall objective to develop the necessary Silicon Photonics Transceiver and Routing technologies towards a new, power efficient, WDM-based, Tb/s, optical on-board interconnection paradigm that enables multiple high bandwidth, point-to-point direct links on the board level, as a step forward to the realization of multi-socket server blades technology. The elected student will participate to this high level project.
Compatible tracks: ELN,BIO
Positions available: 1

Research topics in Electric Engineering

Proposers: Monica Nicoli
Topic: Signal processing techniques for vehicle-to-vehicle communications supporting connected automated driving
Description: This area focuses on signal processing methodologies for vehicular communication systems based on millimeter waves (mm-wave) to support cooperative automated driving (CAD). Mm-wave signals (30-300 GHz), currently employed for automotive radar, have the potential to support high data-rate (1 Gbps) and ultra-low latency (1 ms) communications between self-driving vehicles for enabling cooperative perception and maneuvering functionalities. By high data-rate vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) communications, vehicles can share high-definition maps of the driving environment (radar, camera, lidar) and enlarge their perception range, with huge benefits in road safety. Fast V2V interactions enable the vehicle to exchange the planned trajectories and synchronize the mobility patterns to form tight autonomous convoys with enhanced traffic efficiency. This research area focuses on the design of mm-wave V2V connectivity to support these functionalities. Large antenna arrays are employed at the transceivers to form sharp beams and counterbalance the high path-loss of mm-wave propagation. Main objective is the development of innovative algorithms for fast alignment and tracking of the beam-pointing between vehicles, or between vehicles and infrastructure, exploiting side information on vehicles’ dynamics and data fusion with interconnected vehicles
Compatible tracks: TLC, ATM, CSE
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Antonio Capone
Topic: Software Defined Networking and Network Virtualization
Description: Software Defined Networking is the paradigm that is radically changing the technologies and architecture of modern wired and wireless networks replacing classical distributed protocols with centralized control and programmable interfaces. When it is associated with virtualization techniques for the implementation of network functions and edge computing for end user applications, it becomes a powerful tool whose potentials are still to be discovered. The research area investigates: programming abstractions for fully virtualized networks, optimization approaches to the instantiation of functions and applications (network compilers), traffic engineering applications, traffic monitoring tools, mobile virtualized networks, etc.
Compatible tracks: TLC, INF
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Massimo Tornatore, Francesco Musumeci
Topic: Machine Learning Based Management of Optical Networks
Description: The work targets the development of machine learning tools and algorithms for failure detection and failure identification in optical networks. Failure detection/identification tools can then be leveraged by the network operators to properly adapt the network by re-routing traffic.
Compatible tracks: ATM, TEL, INF
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Lorenzo Luini, Carlo Riva
Topic: Advanced satellite communication systems
Description: Investigation and modelling of electromagnetic wave propagation oriented to advanced satellite communication systems, which are shifting from broadcast to interactive systems (e.g. Internet via satellite), to higher frequency bands (e.g. from 30 GHz up to 80 GHz), from using geostationary satellites to satellites on Low and Medium Earth.
Compatible tracks: TLC, ELN
Positions available: 1
Proposers: Maurizio Magarini
Topic: Molecular and Nanoscale Communication
Description: Molecular Communication (MC) is an enabling paradigm for the interconnection of future devices and networks in the biological environment, with applications ranging from bio-medicine to environmental monitoring and control. The research area will focus on the engineering of biological circuits, which allows to manipulate the molecular information processing abilities of biological cells in order to realize MC-enabled devices. The main subject of investigation will be the design and engineering of communication protocols and systems harnessing molecules as the key information carrier.
Compatible tracks: BIO, ELN, TLC
Positions available: 1