Doctoral students in Automatic Control

Automatic Control is an exciting and broad subject, covering both advanced mathematics and hands-on engineering. Historically, it has been instrumental in many areas, from the early development of telecommunications to the space race. Today, driven by the need to engineer ever larger systems, Automatic Control is more relevant than ever. The department of Automatic control has a stimulating and international environment with PhD students, postdocs, and teachers coming from all corners of the world. Research and teaching are conducted in an open and progressive atmosphere with collaborations both within academia and with industry, nationally as well as internationally. A PhD degree from the Department of Automatic control gives you the perfect base for an exciting career, be it in academia or industry.

Lund University and the Department of Automatic Control welcome applicants with diverse backgrounds and experiences. We regard equality and diversity as a strength and an asset. For more information on being a doctoral student at the department, please have a look at our research videos: Research | Department of Automatic Control (lth.se).

Subject description

We are hiring up to two doctoral students to work within the area of modelling, optimization and control for large-scale and complex systems. Both students will work to extend control theory and machine learning to address the challenges posed by the growing size and complexity of engineered, societal-scale systems within, for example, energy, transportation, communication as well as sociotechnical systems. 

The students will work in one of the following two projects:

1) "Scalable Optimization for Learning in Control" funded by ELLIIT, a strategic research area for IT and mobile communication.
Description: Large-scale engineering applications put new demands on control theory, as most existing methods for analysis, design and verification do not scale well with increasing complexity. Furthermore, new powerful algorithms for machine learning are increasingly being used for control engineering purposes, further adding to the complexity of analysis and verification. To counteract this, there is a strong demand for scalable algorithms and corresponding information interfaces. The purpose of the proposed project is to address the complexity challenges by developing and exploiting new algorithms suitable for distributed implementation.

2) ''Robustness of societal-scale network systems'' funded by WASP, the Wallenberg AI, Autonomous Systems and Software Program.
Description: Distributed control designs strive to achieve globally optimal objectives based on agents’ local control decisions. When networks grow large, each agent’s share of total resources (measurement, actuation, communication) may become very small, sometimes resulting in the overall system becoming fragile or exhibiting non-intuitive and suboptimal behaviors. Examples can be found in traffic and electric power systems. Analogous phenomena occur in social and socio-technical systems, where algorithmic or personal decisions can lead to, for example, affective polarization or filter bubbles. This interdisciplinary project will model the systems-theoretical mechanisms causing fragilities in societal-scale networks, and study how network structures and algorithms can be designed to improve their robustness. Depending on the student’s interests, applications can be either engineered or social networks.

Work duties

The PhD position consists of three main aspects:

• research project, including authoring papers and traveling to conferences, seminars etc.,
• postgraduate courses, given locally, nationally and internationally (90 ECTS credits), and
• teaching (no more than 20%), including lab supervision and exam responsibilities. This part may also include departmental services, such as working with equality and diversity, arranging events etc.

Admission requirements

A person meets the general admission requirements for third-cycle courses and study programmes if the applicant:

• has been awarded a second-cycle qualification, or
• has satisfied the requirements for courses comprising at least 240 credits of which at least 60 credits were awarded in the second cycle, or
• has acquired substantially equivalent knowledge in some other way in Sweden or abroad.

A person meets the specific admission requirements for third cycle studies in automatic control if the applicant has:

• knowledge corresponding to course FRT010 Automatic Control, Basic Course and a second cycle specialisation of relevance to the subject, and
• an MSc in engineering or corresponding qualification

Additional requirements:

• Very good oral and written proficiency in English.
• Good language-analytical ability.
• Curiosity about research and teaching in general, and motivation for the particular research project.
• Creativity with good ability for cooperation and networking.

Assessment criteria

Selection for third-cycle studies is based on the student’s potential to profit from such studies. The assessment of potential is made primarily on the basis of academic results from the first and second cycle. Special attention is paid to the following:

Knowledge and skills relevant to the thesis project and the subject of study. An assessment of ability to work independently and to formulate and tackle research problems. Written and oral communication skills. Other experience relevant to the third-cycle studies, e.g. professional experience.

Other assessment criteria:

Strong foundations in

• advanced control methods
• mathematical modelling
• mathematical optimization theory
• graph theory

are meriting.

Consideration will be given to good collaborative skills, drive and independence, and how the applicant, through experience and skills, is deemed to have the abilities necessary for successfully completing the third cycle programme.

We offer

Lund University is a public authority which means that employees get particular benefits, generous annual leave and an advantageous occupational pension scheme. Read more on the University website about being a Lund University employee Work at Lund University. https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/about-university/work-lund-university

Terms of employment

Only those admitted to third cycle studies may be appointed to a doctoral studentship. Third cycle studies at LTH consist of full-time studies for 4 years. A doctoral studentship is a fixed-term employment of a maximum of 5 years (including 20% departmental duties). Doctoral studentships are regulated in the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100), chapter 5, 1-7 §§.

We intend to offer employment to 2 PhD students. A doctoral student will receive a competitive monthly salary of 35 400 SEK with yearly raise.

Those applicants who will be called for interview, might be asked to perform a small test to demonstrate basic competence.

How to apply

Applications shall be written in English and include a cover letter stating the reasons why you are interested in the position and in what way the research project corresponds to your interests and educational background. The application must also contain a CV, degree certificate or equivalent, and other documents you wish to be considered (grade transcripts, contact information for your references, letters of recommendation, etc.).

Welcome to apply!