I’m happy to consider compelling project proposals that involve hardware, networking, security or wireless technologies. Ideally they will be well aligned with my research interests.
In recent years students have worked on projects in security and crypto, Vehicular Networking, Distributed online control, Underwater communications, and some simple Quantum Communication concepts. It might be interesting to look at the application and relevance of some of these aspects to the nanocommunications domain.
We have also just completed an EC project on offshore wind and wave energy and have some highly novel concepts on structural health monitoring involving drones that we would be interested in exploring with a view to commercialisation. These will stray across into modelling and (possibly) some flow and fluid dynamics so might be of greatest interest to Engineering student(s). We do have a variety of unresolved comms modelling and associated challenges that would be interesting to work on also.
Three projects of particular interest in 2023/24 are:
A: Solar powered I2C data gatherer for remote, autonomous, learning actuated systems
The practical aspects of this project involve the creation of an autonomous, outdoor data gatherer that can continuously capture data received from a serial data source e.g. serial port, 1 wire, I2C, etc. The device will be solar powered, and will seek to maximise efficiency and efficacy.
The device will connect through any available communication channels e.g. bluetooth, wifi, cell data, satellite data. The prototype will be substantially created using off-the-shelf modules e.g. from Sparkfun.
In addition to the technologies involved in the prototype, interesting research questions will arise in the area of compressive sensing and redundancy within the data streams, onboard time-series analysis, supervised machine learning, and localised decision making and actuation.
Use cases may include monitoring, analysis and alerting to/from devices and infrastructure, remote sensing and monitoring in inaccessible or uninhabited areas e.g. dark sky reserves.
Required: An interest in hardware and systems, and in how and where learning and inteliigence can be meaningfully and valuably employed and deployed in Internet of Things type contexts.
B. Quantum Information Science and Theory.
Quantum Information Science involves combining the principles and concepts of quantum mechanics with information science and theory to investigate new thinking and approaches to the creation, procssing, analysis, storage and transmission of information. It is a field that is both challenging and cutting edge (e.g. https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/physics/2022/press-release/). We are currently doing work on understanding how traditional Engineering algorithms and approaches can be realised in a quantum setting, moving towards developing completely new schemes and approaches that have their genesis in a quantum setting. You will, likely, be familiar with the Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) used in media coding; a student undertaking this project can expect to be working with DCT like approaches and concepts from a quantum setting. We already have working concepts and instances e.g. for the DCT, so there is a platform and support base from which to upskill. Please note – this will be a challenging research-style project and it is likely that you will already have distinguished yourself in College to seriously consider it.
Required: : A strong interest in (some of) Maths, Physics and data coding/information science. Some familiarity with some of the quantum concepts and principles above would be advantageous.
C. Secure, Verifiable and Timely Side Channel Network Communications Using Distributed Ledgers
Some years ago we wrote the first paper on the use of secure side channels in helping ensure robustness, reliability and integrity in inter device communication and messaging in the presence of active channel attack and compromise. Our validation context was that of autonomous vehicles, using only existing sidechannel hardware present in modern vehicles such as ultrasonics, cameras and visual signalling, and using the blockchain as a public, shared, open data ledger. This project proposes to revisit the original concept with two different goals: i) to consider recent innovations in distributed ledger and consensus concepts and systems and how they will reshape what can constitute a data/information side-channel, and ii) to more broadly consider what constitutes a ‘side channel’ (in information theoretic terms) for modern communication and networking systems and protocols.
The principles under investigation have considerable applicability across systems and platforms that employ and rely on Distributed Ledger Technologies (e.g. financial services and cryptocurrencies), and in areas such as network DDoS protection and network backpressure. Required: A strong interest in the principles, concepts and actualities of how and where DLTs are used. A willingness and ability to consider and explore some of the mathematical aspects of consensus protocols. An interest in understanding how data and information are encoded and representated in emerging systems and protocols.
For those interested in crypto and security, we can always find interesting theoretical and practical project topics and goals.
Applicants should have very strong programming and theoretical capabilities, and and be interested in working with some hardware and simulation systems.
Head on over to https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Ciaran.McGoldrick to get a further idea of what I’m interested in.
If you have a project idea or concept of your own, that is compatible with the broad principles above, then please get in touch. I’m always happy to chat through potential project ideas.
Ciaran