Host: You will be hosted at the Deutsche Telekom Chair of Communication Networks at the Technical University of Dresden, in Dresden, Germany

Opportunity open to: PhD candidates or young professionals active in eligible countries

Length of the stay: six (6) months

Network synchronization is one of the main pillars of telecommunications. The quality of synchronization directly affects the Quality-of-Service (QoS) experienced by end-users and applications.

There are two main approaches to time synchronization in networks: deploying independently synchronized clocks at each node or frame packet-based synchronization of distributed clocks. The latter aims to transfer time information from a reference clock (master) – a central atomic clock or the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) – over a communications network via frames or packets.

The idea of the intern’s project would be designing a quantum protocol to synchronize the network nodes and the Mobile Edge Cloud (MEC). The idea would be to develop a protocol, using a system of entangled qubits distributed among the different network nodes. The quantum synchronization protocol designed will also be tested in a simul-emulation platform to understand the issues and trade-offs in the network context.

Currently, state of the art is to use Precision Time Protocol (PTP) techniques for synchronizing network clocks, and this needs prior exact topological information of the clocks together with frames sending timestamps for synchronization. The proposed project can be very beneficial to go beyond the synchronization errors due to packets’ losses. Synchronization in network and data centers (that are networks themselves where synchronization must also be applied to all the servers) towards an end-to-end perspective will significantly challenge all the classical standards, which very likely need to be replaced by new techniques of network synchronization.

The synchronization protocols need to satisfy the more and more stringent Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in complex and heterogeneous future networks. Hence, the protocol proposed based on quantum mechanically synchronized entangled qubits at different network nodes should achieve the precise synchronization of the MEC applications with the end-users.

Objectives of the intern’s project:

O1. Design of entanglement-based synchronisation protocol for 6G networks, targeting mainly reliable and ultraprecise synchronization.

O2. Integration of this protocol with ‘classical’ control plane.

O3. Implementation of the solution in our quantum-classical simul-emulation platform for the proof of concepts. The analysis and tests will be done via a classical emulation of the MEC exploiting simulated quantum resources. Quantum simulated layer will be equipped with the new module for synchronisation and used for a more accurate simulation of the designed protocols and solution in O1.

 

About the QIA Internship Program

In this internship call, there are five (5) available opportunities in Europe’s leading academic institutions, and gain first-hand knowledge and experience in enabling a European Quantum Internet ecosystem!

Depending on the program, internship opportunities are open to either master students, PhD candidates, postdocs or young professionals studying or working at a university, research institution or a company in one of the eligible countries*. The program covers a maximum of 5,000 EUR per internship to cover for travel and accommodation expenses.

This internship program aims to initiate or strengthen collaboration with universities, research institutes and companies in the eligible countries through offering internship opportunities for their students and young professionals.

You can learn more about the application procedure here.

Deadline of submission: 31 May 2023

*List of eligible countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Sweden