MSCA-IF-2020–SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING (SDN) IN OPTICAL ACCESS NETWORKS–EOI–UNIVERSIDAD DE VALLADOLID

The Universidad of Valladolid wishes to attract talented, ambitious and experienced researchers at the post-doctoral level by supporting them as applicants in the preparation of a proposal to be submitted to the MSCA-IF-2020 call.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZATION

The University of Valladolid is one of the most important centers of Higher Education in Spain. It counts on four campuses, over 100 degrees, 29 doctoral programs (14 with Honor Mention) and 68 postgraduate degrees, accredited international collaborations and prestigious research Centers. On average, nearly 25,000 students enroll each year, counts on more than 2,500 teachers and nearly 1,000 people dealing with administration tasks and other services.

The UVA manages around 180/year research projects financed through competitive public R+D+i calls (European, national or regional), and approximately 500 contracts and agreements aimed at the transfer of knowledge and technology, amounting to an average value of over fifteen million Euros per annum. Moreover, its researchers take part in almost 250 further projects and contracts managed by other institutions.

The Optical Communications Group (OCG) at the University of Valladolid began its activity in the field of optical communications, opening up progressively new lines of action in other areas. The group is currently working in four basic areas:

- optical communication networks

- radio communications

- rehabilitation

- innovative teaching technologies

In addition, the Group also plays an important activity in the development of innovation-oriented applications in production processes and in management activities.

In the optical communication area, our research focuses on proposing and analyzing new architectures of optical access and transport networks, developing sizing and control methods to offer end-to-end service differentiation, in order to provide solutions that can be adopted by companies to short and medium term.

In the area of access networks, we work on Passive Optical Access Network (PON) architectures and Next-Generation PONs (NG-PON1, NG-PON2) proposing new access control medium methods and dynamic bandwidth allocation algorithms to efficiently use the available network resources and to provide quality of service requirements by applications and users. The transmission network works on the estimation of transmission quality and on the evaluation of the performance of various architectures of optical networks, including elastic optical networks and cognitive optical networks. Precisely, the application of artificial intelligence techniques in general, and of machine learning in particular, to optical networks, has been one of the central elements of our recent research. We are currently also working on the integration of SDN (Software Defined Networks) and virtualization technologies in the optical access and transport networks.

WEB: http://gco.uva.es/en/

RESEARCH/PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Passive Optical Networks (PONs) have consolidated as the predominant access technology. The increase in traffic in these networks, and their variability and heterogeneity, requires the adoption of control mechanisms to facilitate network management and to optimize their performance in these dynamic environments. Although in the PON field it is in an initial phase, the use of the SDN (Software defined networking) paradigm allows to increase the efficiency of the network and make a better traffic control, besides facilitating network management, automation, interoperability and scalability, which leads to a reduction in costs. On the other hand, the incorporation of adaptive techniques based on artificial intelligence for the management and control of the network has led to notable advances in different use cases related to optical networks. The use of SDN and artificial intelligence in PONs is, therefore, a very promising combination.

Thus, the general objectives of the project are to contribute (1) to the definition and analysis of mechanisms for the integration of SDN in PONs, and (2) to the development of control mechanisms based on artificial intelligence techniques, all with the aim of facilitating network management and improving their performance, as well as enabling network operators to offer new services to their users. The project will propose and analyze different mechanisms for network operation, but will also experimentally validate some of the proposals through the upgrade of a GPON (Gigabit PON) testbed owned by the research group.

Description of the offer:

Selected candidates will be integrated in our research group, participating in all our research, academic and transversal activities: 1) Contribution to research projects, 2) Involvement in international collaborations, 3) Publication of papers 4) Supervision of Ph.D. and Master theses, 5) Attendance of international conferences and meetings.

Work location(s):

Optical Communications Group (GCO)

E.T.S.I. Telecomunicación, Universidad de Valladolid

Campus “Miguel Delibes”, Paseo de Belén 15, 47011 Valladolid (Spain)

WHO CAN APPLY?

• MSCA IF eligibility criteria:
  • The program is open for all academic disciplines.
  • A researcher can move to a country that is a member of the European Union or an associated country to conduct research for up to 24 months.
  • Before applying the researcher should have a PhD-Degree or 4 years of research experience after attained master’s degree and there is no upper age limit after achieving the PhD-Degree.
  • The researcher cannot have been living or have had his/her main occupation in the country of the host institution (Spain) for more than 12 months within the last 3 years counting from the time of application. The researcher can come from anywhere in the world.
• OFFER REQUIREMENTS

• Expertise areas: optical networks, SDN (Software Defined Networking), Machine Learning techniques.
• Language: Fluent English (writing and speaking)
• Other requirements: motivation, team working skills, leadership, autonomy and communication skills.

CONTACT PERSON

Noemí Merayo Álvarez (noemer@tel.uva.es)

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TgfY7vEAAAAJ&hl=es

http://orcid.org/0000-0002-6920-0778

https://publons.com/researcher/2485954/noemi-merayo/

https://www.scopus.com/authid/detail.uri?authorId=57208559872

Applications: documents to be submiTted

• Applicant’s full updated CV (2 pages)
• A letter of interest with the motivation to join the research group (1 page)
• Full list of Publications.