Combined study

4 years

prof. Ing. Aleš Prokeš, Ph.D.

Chairman :
prof. Ing. Aleš Prokeš, Ph.D.
Councillor internal :
doc. Ing. Martin Štumpf, Ph.D.
prof. Ing. Roman Šotner, Ph.D.
doc. Ing. Tomáš Götthans, Ph.D.
doc. Ing. Jaroslav Láčík, Ph.D.
doc. Ing. Jiří Petržela, Ph.D.
Councillor external :
Ing. Ondřej Číp, Ph.D.
doc. Ing. Milan Polívka, Ph.D.

Provide doctoral education to graduates of a master's degree in electronics and communication technologies. To deepen students' theoretical knowledge in selected parts of mathematics and physics and to give them the necessary knowledge and practical skills in applied informatics and computer science. To teach them the methods of scientific work.

The Ph.D. graduate will be able to solve scientific and complex technical problems in the field of electronics and communications. Graduates of the doctoral program "Electronics and Communication Technologies" will be competent to work in the field of electronics and communication technology as scientists and researchers in fundamental or applied research, as high-specialists in development, design, and construction in many R&D institutions, electrical and electronic manufacturing companies and producers and users of communication systems and devices, where they will be able to creatively use modern computer, communication, and measurement technique.

The doctors are able to solve independently scientific and complex engineering tasks in the area of electronics and communications. Thanks to the high-quality theoretical education and specialization in the study program, graduates of doctoral studies are sought as specialists in in the area of electronic engineering and communications. Graduates of the doctoral program will be able to work in the field of electronics and communications technology as researchers in fundamental or applied research, as specialists in development, design and construction in various research and development institutions, electrotechnical and electronic manufacturing companies, where they will be able to creative exploit modern computing, communication and measuring technologies.

Doctoral studies are carried out in agreement with the individual study plan, which will prepare supervisor together with the doctoral student at the beginning of the study. The individual study plan specifies all the duties given by the BUT Study and Examination Rules, which the doctoral student must fulfill to finish his study successfully. These duties are scheduled into entire the study period. They are classified by points and their fulfilment is checked at fixed deadlines. The student enrolls and performs examination from compulsory subjects (Modern digital wireless communication, Modern electronic circuit design), at least from two compulsory-elective subjects aimed at the dissertation area, and at least from two optional courses such as English for PhD students, Solutions for Innovative Entries, Scientific Publishing from A to Z).
The students may enroll for the state exam only if all the examinations specified in his/her individual study plan have been completed. Before the state exam, the student prepares a short version of dissertation thesis describing in detail the aims of the thesis, state of the art in the area of dissertation, eventually the properties of methods which are assumed to be applied in the research topics solution. The defense of the short version of thesis, which is reviewed, is the first part of the state exam. In the next part of the exam the student has to prove deep theoretical and practical knowledges in the field of electrical engineering, electronics, communication techniques, fundamental theory of circuits and electromagnetic field, signal processing, antenna and high-frequency techniques. The state exam is oral and, in addition to the discussion on the dissertation thesis, it also consists of areas related to compulsory and compulsory elective courses.
The student can ask for the dissertation defense after successful passing the state exam and after fulfilling all conditions for termination of studies such as participation in teaching, scientific and professional activities (creative activities), and a study or a work stay at a foreign institution no shorter than one month, or participation in an international project.

The doctoral studies of a student follow the Individual Study Plan (ISP), which is defined by the supervisor and the student at the beginning of the study period. The ISP is obligatory for the student, and specifies all duties being consistent with the Study and Examination Rules of BUT, which the student must successfully fulfill by the end of the study period. The duties are distributed throughout the whole study period, scored by credits/points and checked in defined dates. The current point evaluation of all activities of the student is summarized in the “Total point rating of doctoral student” document and is part of the ISP. At the beginning of the next study year the supervisor highlights eventual changes in ISP. By October, 15 of each study year the student submits the printed and signed ISP to Science Department of the faculty to check and archive.
Within the first four semesters the student passes the exams of compulsory, optional-specialized and/or optional-general courses to fulfill the score limit in Study area, and concurrently the student significantly deals with the study and analysis of the knowledge specific for the field defined by the dissertation thesis theme and also continuously deals with publishing these observations and own results. In the follow-up semesters the student focuses already more to the research and development that is linked to the dissertation thesis topic and to publishing the reached results and compilation of the dissertation thesis.
By the end of the second year of studies the student passes the Doctor State Exam, where the student proves the wide overview and deep knowledge in the field linked to the dissertation thesis topic. The student must apply for this exam by April, 30 in the second year of studies. Before the Doctor State Exam the student must successfully pass the exam from English language course.
In the third and fourth year of studies the student deals with the required research activities, publishes the reached results and compiles the dissertation thesis. As part of the study duties is also completing a study period at an abroad institution or participation on an international research project with results being published or presented in abroad or another form of direct participation of the student on an international cooperation activity, which must be proved by the date of submitting the dissertation thesis.
By the end of the winter term in the fourth year of study the students submit the elaborated dissertation thesis to the supervisor, who scores this elaborate. The final dissertation thesis is expected to be submitted by the student by the end of the fourth year of the studies.
In full-time study form, during the study period the student is obliged to pass a pedagogical practice, i.e. participate in the education process. The participation of the student in the pedagogical activities is part of his/her research preparations. By the pedagogical practice the student gains experience in passing the knowledge and improves the presentation skills. The pedagogical practice load (exercises, laboratories, project supervision etc.) of the student is specified by the head of the department based on the agreement with the student’s supervisor. The duty of pedagogical practice does not apply to students-payers and combined study program students. The involvement of the student in the education process within the pedagogical practice is confirmed by the supervisor in the Information System of the university.

1. round (applications submitted from 01.04.2021 to 15.05.2021)

1. Adaptive classification of RF signals by artificial intelligence

   The dissertation is focused on the adoption of machine learning and deep learning techniques to process RF signals dominantly from radars. The techniques are aimed at extracting relevant information such as target identification and location or general received signal parameters from the available data, despite the lack of an accurate mathematical description of system behavior and electromagnetic wave propagation. Important goal of the research is better detection accuracy than that achieved using conventional signal processing methods. Although some important steps have already been taken to adopt these techniques, considerable research efforts are needed to make them a reality.

   Supervisor: Prokeš Aleš, prof. Ing., Ph.D.

2. Adversarial machine learning for drone communication

   The dissertation is aimed to employ adversarial neural networks for black-box modelling to imitate communication with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The question if deep neural networks could learn sophisticated waveforms of modern wireless communication systems (and potentially create new ones) has not been answered yet. In [1], authors demonstrate that jamming is ineffective to neutralize unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV). The presented method allows the drone to exploit an adversarial jamming signal for implementing an emergency (but effective) navigation which enables the drone to accomplish its mission. In [2], capabilities of deep neural networks in channel coding, modulation, and parametric estimation are discussed for the physical layer of wireless communications. In [3], authors presented a deep-learning detector DeepIM which employs a deep neural network with fully connected layers to recover data bits in an OFDM-IM system. While the remote controller is traditionally operated by a person maintaining the visual line of sight with the UAV, the trend is moving towards long-range control and autonomous operation. To enable this, reliable and widely available wireless connectivity is needed to manually control a UAV or take control of an autonomous UAV flight [4]. References [1] R. DI PIETRO; G. OLIGERI; P. TEDESCHI; JAM-ME: Exploiting Jamming to Accomplish Drone Mission. In 2019 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS), Washington DC, DC, USA, 2019, pp. 1-9, doi: 10.1109/CNS.2019.8802717. [2] Z. ZHAO; M. C. VURAN; F. GUO; S. D. SCOTT; Deep-Waveform: A Learned OFDM Receiver Based on Deep Complex Convolutional Networks, https://arxiv.org/abs/1810.07181 [3] T. V. Luong, Y. Ko, N. A. Vien, D. H. N. Nguyen and M. Matthaiou, "Deep Learning-Based Detector for OFDM-IM," in IEEE Wireless Communications Letters, vol. 8, no. 4, pp. 1159-1162, Aug. 2019, doi: 10.1109/LWC.2019.2909893. [4] A. ABDALLA; V. MAROJEVIC; Communications and Networking Standards for UASs: The 3GPP Perspective and Research Drivers. 2020, https://arxiv.org/abs/2009.03533

   Supervisor: Götthans Tomáš, doc. Ing., Ph.D.

3. Cascade model of turbulent transmission medium

   One of the phenomena affecting the qualitative and quantitative parameters of the optical beam in the transmission medium is turbulence. Standardly the degree of turbulence is determined by the structural parameter of the refractive index, which is based on a statistical analysis of the transmission medium. There are a number of ways to set this parameter. However, the current approach of determining the degree of turbulence of the transmission medium cannot express the instantaneous degree of turbulence. The aim of the dissertation is to design and develop a methodology for determining the degree of turbulence of individual transmission media using an equivalent temperature gradient, which is based on the physical properties of the transmission medium and gives information about the instantaneous degree of the turbulence at a given place and time. It is necessary to set the limits of the validity of the method. The equivalent temperature gradient method should be modified for several turbulent inhomogeneities on the path of the transmitted beam. Individual inhomogeneities should be described and quantified by matrix expression. The equivalent temperature gradient method should be extended for a cascade of turbulent inhomogeneities. The problematics need to be solved in both the spatial and temporal domains. The proposed methods should be applicable to different types of transmission media. The output of the dissertation will also be the analysis and determination of the maximum achievable transmission rate of optical wireless links in dependence on the type and degree of turbulence for various transmission media.

   Supervisor: Hudcová Lucie, doc. Ing., Ph.D.

4. Optimization of phase shifters for HPM applications

   When varying the width of a rectangular waveguide operating in the TE10 mode, the propagation constant, and consequently the output phase, can be purely mechanically changed. Since no dielectric components or pins are included, the efficiency of the phase shifter is about 90%. On the other hand, the speed of tuning is low [1]. A dual circular polarizer with a motor-controlled metal plug was used in [2]. The phase at the RF output was adjusted by sliding the short circuit along the port related to a dual polarizer. Low losses of the phase shifter were kept, and the use of motor increased the speed of tuning. In [3], authors presented a phase shifter based on coaxial waveguides (TEM waves) and two identical TE11 circular polarizers. When rotating the second polarizer, the output phase was adjusted in the range from 0° to 360°. The dissertation is aimed to compare existing concepts of high-power phase shifters from various viewpoints (efficiency, speed of tuning, accuracy of phase setting, etc.). Outputs of this comparison should yield an optimum configuration of the phase shifter for the use in selected security applications. For the selected concept of the phase shifter, methodology of tolerance and sensitivity analyses should be worked out. Considering conclusions, an efficient optimization of the structure of the phase shifter should be proposed comprising accuracy of phase setting, efficiency of the phase shifter, speed of tuning, etc. References [1] YI-MING YANG; CHENG-WEI YUAN; GUO-XIN CHENG; BAO-LIANG QIAN; Ku-band rectangular waveguide wide side dimension adjustable phase shifter. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 2015, vol. 43, no. 5, p. 1666-1669. DOI: 10.1109/TPS.2014.2370074 [2] CHAO CHANG; LETIAN GUO; SAMI G. TANTAWI; YANSHENG LIU; JIAWEI LI; CHANGHUA CHEN; WENHUA HUANG; A new compact high-power microwave phase shifter. IEEE Transactions on Microwave Theory and Techniques, 2015, vol. 63, no. 6, p. 1875-1882. DOI: 10.1109/TMTT.2015.2423281 [3] XUE-LONG ZHAO; CHENG-WEI YUAN; LIE LIU; SHENG-REN PENG; ZHEN BAI; DAN CAI; GW TEM-mode phase shifter for high-power microwave applications. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 2016, vol. 44, no. 3, p. 268-272. DOI: 10.1109/TPS.2016.2523122

   Supervisor: Láčík Jaroslav, doc. Ing., Ph.D.

5. Perspective optical wireless communication systems for communication standard 5G/B5G

   The subject of the scientific project is to investigate methods of optical signal generation and detection in optical wireless communication systems, which are implemented in the 5G standard or are planned in B5G. The research will focus on signal processing in optical transceivers. New advanced types of modulations and channel coding will be analyzed. Experimental work will be focused on the comparison of selected types of modulators and detectors. The aim of the research is to suppress the negative influence of the atmosphere on the transmission of the optical signal, to optimize the transmission technology and to increase its reliability and availability.

   Supervisor: Barcík Peter, Ing., Ph.D.

6. Picture and video quality in multimedia systems for virtual reality

   Nowadays, demand for multimedia systems supporting technology virtual reality (VR) in different application fields is rapidly increasing. Thanks to progress in display technology and affordable end user devices, there are numerous Head-Mounted Devices (HMDs) and accessories for watching 180/360-degree pictures and videos. For massive providing of multimedia services with such content in appropriate quality, advanced video compression algorithms with high efficiency are vital. Next, methods to assess the quality of panoramic picture/video on both objective and subjective level are also important. This dissertation thesis focuses on modern video coding algorithms for compression of 180/360-degree pictures and videos. Attention should be also devoted to the study of objective and subjective metrics to assess quality of 180/360-degree pictures and videos. The outputs of this work, besides the definition of requirements on compression algorithms for 180/360-degree picture and video, should introduce appropriate methods for 180/360-degree picture and video quality assessment with high reproducibility on both objective and subjective levels.

   Supervisor: Polák Ladislav, doc. Ing., Ph.D.

7. UAV detection and localization by MIMO radars

   Small-sized propellers have low radar cross section (RCS) values [1]. On the other hand, the rotation of propellers causes a significant periodic fluctuation of the radar echo [1], [2]. This unique feature of periodic fluctuations registered by rotating blades is in an agreement with micro-Doppler theory. Radar signatures contributed by rotating blades of drones usually refer to the kinematical micro-Doppler phenomenon on spectrograms. The mapping between the micro-Doppler signature and the rotation characteristics of blades does not always require a long time. Theoretically, when the observation time is short enough that the instant micro-Doppler produced by rotating blades become the “blade flash” in the time domain and the rotor blade modulation in the spectrum. The dissertation is aimed to conduct polarimetric analysis based on RCS and micro-Doppler simulations of small drones [3], [4]. The thesis should provide theoretical support for the practical radar system design for detecting small drones. The situations of multiple rotors, different blade configurations and different altitude angles need to be completed as well. References [1] T. PETO; S. BILICZ; L. SZUCS; S. GYIMÓTHY; J. PÁVÓ; The radar cross section of small propellers on unmanned aerial vehicles. In Proc. 10th Eur. Conf. Antennas Propag., 2016, pp. 1–4. doi:10.1109/EuCAP.2016.7481645. [2] R. NAKAMURA; H. HADAMA; Characteristics of ultra-wideband radar echoes from a drone. IEICE Commun. Express, vol. 6, no. 9, pp. 530–534, 2017. doi:10.1109/WiSNeT46826.2020.9037614. [3] T. LI; B. WEN; Y. TIAN; Z. LI; S. WANG; Numerical simulation and experimental analysis of small drone rotor blade polarimetry based on RCS and micro-doppler signature. In IEEE Antennas Wireless Propag. Lett., vol. 18, no. 1, pp. 187–191, Jan. 2018. doi:10.1109/LAWP.2018.2885373. [4] J. GONG; J. YAN; D. LI; R. CHEN; F. TIAN; Z. YAN; Theoretical and Experimental Analysis of Radar Micro-Doppler Signature Modulated by Rotating Blades of Drones. In IEEE Antennas and Wireless Propagation Letters, vol. 19, no. 10, pp. 1659-1663, Oct. 2020, doi:10.1109/LAWP.2020.3013012.

   Supervisor: Götthans Tomáš, doc. Ing., Ph.D.