MSCA-IF: Joint application at the University of Granada. Department of Electronics and Computer Technology, DiTEC Research Group.

Professor Antonio García Ríos, from the Department of Electronics and Computer Technology, DiTEC Research Group at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (MSCA-IF) in 2018 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (more information: http://sl.ugr.es/09Qg).

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. It serves more than 60000 students per year, including many foreign students, as UGR is the leader host institution in the Erasmus program. UGR, featuring 3650 professors and more than 2000 auxiliary personnel, offers a total of 75 degrees through its 112 departments and 28 centers.

UGR is also a leading institution in research, located in the top 5/10 of Spanish universities by a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, or international funding. UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking (http://www.arwu.org/), and it is also well recognized for its web presence (http://www.4icu.org/top200/).

Internationally, we bet decidedly by our participation in the calls of H2020, both at partner and coordination. For the duration of the Seventh Framework Programme, the UGR has obtained a total of 66 projects, with total funding of 17.97 million euros, and for H2020, until 2015, more than 25 projects with total funding of more than 6 million euros. Our more than 3,000 researchers are grouped into 365 research groups covering all scientific fields and disciplines.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group

The Department of Electronics and Computer Technology at the University of Granada comprises several research groups that cover fields ranging from nanoelectronics and electronic device physics to digital and instrumentation systems. The Department is also a leading force in the Electronics Engineering and Communications programs at UGR. On the other hand, the DiTEC Research Group is actually formed by four Faculty members and several graduate students. Our main research interests are related to the application of reconfigurable devices to different fields, which include smart instruments for biosignal processing, high-performance digital signal processing, computer arithmetic, and cryptographic circuits. We have pioneered the merging of analog and digital reconfigurable technologies for the development of smart instruments, especially for the acquisition and processing of electric biosignals. Applications for cardiac monitoring, fetal heart rate monitoring, and wearable monitoring in military environments have been developed.

Our infrastructure includes a research lab at the Faculty of Sciences with the required equipment for prototyping and testing of analog and digital electronic systems, and we are members of the “Digital Sensors, Instrumentation and Systems Laboratory” at CITIC-UGR (http://citic.ugr.es/). We are also part of the multidisciplinary group ECsens (http://ecsens.ugr.es/). Thus, a number of research facilities (from typical electronic prototyping and testing to chemical analysis labs) are available to prospective candidates.

Project description

Prospective candidates will work on the use of reconfigurable technologies for sustainable electronics and wearable systems. Reconfigurable technologies do not only allow for reuse of hardware platforms in different applications and scenarios, but at the same time take the very concept of reuse to a new dimension. With this, the advent of IoT and the proliferation of wearable devices and systems and CPSs (Cyber-Physical Systems) are going to transform the electronic equipment market and will have an impact on the generation of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). While this kind of systems may not represent a large percentage of the net weight of generated WEEE, they will impact the market with the large number of devices and their added value in the reuse chain. Thus, the proposed research will focus on the development of multipurpose, low-power, low-cost hardware platforms based on reconfigurable devices, with IoT and wearable applications as main target applications. The enabling technologies will be Cypress PSoC devices, along with low-cost FPGA devices and FPAA systems when required. The targeted platforms will thus include reconfigurable analog signal ports, with special attention to acquisition of biosignals, for wearable devices, and signals for monitoring power systems, as smart grids and autonomous vehicles will be the most common type of CPS. The embedded microprocessor, combined with FPGAs, will form the core of the platform, implementing both digital signal processing and control structures, and will also manage reconfigurable communication interfaces. These will range from low-power Bluetooth, for wearable applications, to WAN systems for IoT applications. Demonstrators will focus on low-cost diagnosis applications and smart grid control.

Research Area

• Information Science and Engineering (ENG)

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor Antonio García Ríos (grios@ugr.es / agarcia@ieee.org):

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)