PhD: Integrated 6G Localization, Sensing, Communications and Control

Organisation/Company University of Bologna Research Field Computer science Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Application Deadline 4 Aug 2026 - 23:00 (UTC) Country Italy Type of Contract To be defined Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week To be defined 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

Offer Description

This is a call for expressions of interest. The formal selection process will be carried out by a selection committee at the University of Bologna.

Open PhD Position

Integrated 6G Localization, Sensing, Communications and Control

Program: PhD in Electrical, Electronic, and Information Engineering (ETIT), University of Bologna (UNIBO, Italy),

Project Context: The selected candidate will join the ERC Starting Grant project “CUE GO – Contextual Radio Cues for Enhancing Decision-Making in Networks of Autonomous Agents”, which aims to develop a new methodological framework to improve decision-making in autonomous systems. The project combines high-frequency radio sensing and localization, semantic environmental mapping, and intelligent agent coordination. The goal is to enable autonomous agents to extract contextual radio features/cues from electromagnetic representations of their environment. These features carry semantic meaning relevant to the agents’ mission and can accelerate decision-making, enhance ambient awareness, and enable prediction of action outcomes.

Expected Work: The selected candidate will conduct research at the intersection of wireless communications, signal processing, and control theory, aiming to develop cutting-edge algorithms for joint localization, communication, and control. The work will account for the deployment of emerging technologies, including extremely large antenna arrays and leaky-wave antennas, on mobile autonomous agents.

Possible activities will include:

• Design of integrated communication, sensing, and control strategies for next-generation 6G systems;
• Development of high-accuracy localization and radio mapping techniques;
• Distributed multi-agent sensing and cooperative positioning algorithms;
• Machine learning and data-driven methods for ambient awareness.

Working Environment: The PhD will be conducted at the University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy) in collaboration with the National Reserach Council of Italy (CNR-IEIIT, Bologna, Italy).

Candidate Profile: We are looking for motivated candidates with the following background:

• MSc (or equivalent) in Electrical Engineering, Telecommunications, Computer Science, Robotics, or related fields
• Solid background in signal processing, wireless systems, applied mathematics, and/or control theory
• Knowledge of machine learning or optimization methods is a plus
• Proficiency in programming (Python, Matlab, C++, or similar)
• Strong interest in cutting-edge research on 6G and autonomous systems