PhD student position in Formal Verification of Autonomous Cyber-Physical Systems

Autonomous cyber-physical systems (ACPS) have great potential to improve our ways of life, increasing mobility, cutting costs, and saving lives. Considering the complexity of the environments these systems operate in, ACPS increasingly rely on data-driven learning-enabled components to perform a variety of challenging decision-making tasks. While indispensable for autonomy, learning-enabled components are unpredictable, e.g., unanticipated changes in the environment of the ACPS may cause a neural network to produce faulty outcomes that could endanger the safety of the system. To assure the safe and reliable operation of ACPS, we need to have a comprehensive understanding of the behavior of the underlying components and capture the conditions of the environment in which these components will be trusted to behave correctly.

Project description
The goal of this PhD project is to develop techniques for the design and verification of assured ACPS with a focus on runtime assurance. You will develop theory and tools for the construction of runtime monitors that capture under what conditions an ACPS is guaranteed to maintain safety. A key challenge in developing such monitors is to handle noisy, missing, or delayed data. Of particular interest is the investigation of compositional methods for constructing runtime monitors. The candidate will build on the latest advances in formal methods and learning theory, to develop methods that allow for building monitors with formal guarantees on their correctness and reliability.

Information about the division and the department
The CSE department is a joint department at Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, with activities on two campuses in the city of Gothenburg. The department is divided into four divisions, and employs around 270 people from over 30 countries. Research in the department has a wide span, from theoretical foundations to applied systems development. We provide high quality education at the Bachelor's, Master's and graduate levels, offering over 120 courses each year. We also have extensive national and international collaborations with academia, industry and society.

This position is funded by the WASP program, and as such comes exciting career development opportunities (https://wasp-sweden.org/ ).

Our aim is to actively improve our gender balance in both our department and division. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers. As an employee of Chalmers and the CSE department, students are given the opportunity to contribute to our active work within the field of equality and diversity.

Major responsibilities
The employment is a fixed-term position limited to a maximum of five years, four years of studies and up to one year of departmental work, distributed over the whole employment period. The major responsibilities for a PhD student position in the division include conducting doctoral research and coursework. By the end of the PhD, students will be able to identify novel research directions and design the appropriate computational experiments to answer key research questions. Students are expected to effectively communicate the results of their research verbally and in writing, and will receive specific training towards building these skills. This position also includes teaching at Chalmers' undergraduate level, or performing other teaching and departmental duties corresponding to 20% of working hours.

Read more about doctoral studies at Chalmers here .

Qualifications
In order to meet the general admission requirements for a doctoral programme at Chalmers, the student must have earned a degree at the second-cycle level, i.e., a master's degree (mastersexamen) of 120 credits or a master's degree (magisterexamen) of 60 credits. Equivalent requirements apply to individuals with an education earned outside of Sweden, for example, a 4-year bachelor's degree is accepted. Previous coursework in cyber-physical systems, formal verification, computational logic, AI, or statistical methods would be beneficial but not required. The applicant should have strong background in mathematical foundations of computer science and experience in Python programming. Previous experience in deep learning, reinforcement learning, or explainable AI is a merit, but not required.

The position requires excellent verbal and written communication skills in English. If you are not familiar with Swedish, you are encouraged, but not required, to learn it during your employment. Chalmers offers Swedish courses.

Contract terms
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of five years.

We offer
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the coastal city of Gothenburg .
Read more about working at Chalmers  and our benefits  for employees.

Chalmers aims to actively improve our gender balance. We work broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence . Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application procedure
The application should be marked with reference number 20240204 and written in English. The application should be sent electronically and be attached as PDF-files, as below. Maximum size for each file is 40 MB. Please note that the system does not support Zip files.

CV:(Please name the document: CV, Family name, reference number)
• CV
• Other, for example previous employments or leadership qualifications and positions of trust.
• Two references that we can contact.

Personal letter:(Please name the document as: Personal letter, Family name, ref.number)
1-3 pages where you:
• Introduce yourself
• Describe your previous experience of relevance for the position (e.g. education, thesis work and, if applicable, any other research activities)
• Describe your future goals and future research focus

Other documents:
• Copies of bachelor and/or master’s thesis.
• Attested copies and transcripts of completed education, grades and other certificates, e.g. TOEFL test results.

Use the button at the foot of the page to reach the application form. 

Please note: The applicant is responsible for ensuring that the application is complete. Incomplete applications and applications sent by email will not be considered.

Application deadline: 2024-04-30

For questions, please contact:
Assistant Professor, Hazem Torfah, Computing Science Division,
[email protected]

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. ***

Chalmers University of Technology conducts research and education in engineering sciences, architecture, technology-related mathematical sciences, natural and nautical sciences, working in close collaboration with industry and society. The strategy for scientific excellence focuses on our six Areas of Advance; Energy, Health Engineering, Information and Communication Technology, Materials Science, Production and Transport. The aim is to make an active contribution to a sustainable future using the basic sciences as a foundation and innovation and entrepreneurship as the central driving forces. Chalmers has around 11,000 students and 3,000 employees. New knowledge and improved technology have characterised Chalmers since its foundation in 1829, completely in accordance with the will of William Chalmers and his motto: Avancez!
 

URL to this page
https://www.chalmers.se/en/about-chalmers/work-with-us/vacancies/?rmpage=job&rmjob=12785&rmlang=UK