King’s International PhD Studentship - Goal-oriented Communications

About the Project

This is a 3.5 year PhD project at King’s College London, the project focuses on goal-oriented commutations, for a home or international student.

Inspired by Shannon’s classic information theory, Weaver and Shannon proposed a more general definition of a communication system involving three different levels of problems, namely, (i) transmission of bits(the technical problem); (ii) semantic exchange of transmitted bits (the semantic problem); and (iii) effect of semantic information exchange on the receiver to accomplish a certain goal (the effectiveness problem). The first level of communication, which is the transmission of bits, has been well studied and realized in conventional communication systems based on Shannon’s bit-oriented technical framework. The second and third levels have not yet been well studied.

Next-generation communication systems must therefore interpret the variable needs of applications and communication constraints, and dynamically allocate network resources to deliver what is required, when it is required, to ensure application goals are met. This represents a fundamental paradigm shift that goes beyond optimising how data is transmitted to reconsider when and how to transmit the semantic representations that are relevant for the goal of the application. This principle underpins the Goal-oriented Communication (GoC) paradigm, where the network actively participates in decision-making, selecting, encoding, and transmitting only the minimal, most valuable information needed by the receiver to achieve its specific goals.

The project will focus on developing goal-oriented communication for video transmission over constrained communication channels and implementing these solutions in existing testbed at Prof. Yansha Deng’s lab.

Requirements:

• We are especially interested in students with a strong understanding of telecommunications, video communication, artificial intelligence, or relevant topics.
• Candidates are expected to have strong publication record.
• Good English oral and written communication skills are required.

Before you apply, you are welcome to send your CV, published papers, and UG and MSc transcripts to Yansha Deng.

Application Details

To be considered for the position candidates must apply via King’s Apply online application system. Details are available at https://www.kcl.ac.uk/engineering/postgraduate/research-degrees

Please apply for Engineering Research (MPhil/PhD) and indicate Yansha Deng as the supervisor and quote the project title in your application and all correspondence.

Please ensure to add the following code [*1025*] in the Funding section of the application form.

Please select option 5 ‘I am applying for a funding award or scholarship administered by King’s College London’ and type the code into the ‘Award Scheme Code or Name’ box. Please copy and paste the code exactly.

The selection process will involve a pre-selection on documents and, if selected, will be followed by an invitation to an interview. If successful at the interview, an offer will be provided in due course.

Further information can be found at https://www.kcl.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/how-to-apply

Funding Notes

Funding is available for 3.5 years and covers tuition fees and a tax-free stipend.

Stipend: For 26/27 a tax-free stipend of approximately £23,805 p.a. with possible inflationary increases after the first year.

Tuition fees: Home tuition fees 26/27 £8,000 p.a. or international tuition fees 26/27 £34,700 p.a.