Enhancing Autonomy for Digital Twins

Applicants are invited for a PhD fellowship/scholarship at Graduate School of Technical Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, within the Electrical and Computer Engineering programme. The position is available from 01 July 2025 or later. You can submit your application via the link under 'how to apply'.

Title
Enhancing Autonomy for Digital Twins

Research area and project description
Digital twins integrate models with data gathered from physical twin counterparts, adding value through enablers and services that allow informed decision-making about the reconfiguration of the physical twin, either autonomously, or by human stakeholders. We consider the potential of DTs for improving the capabilities and performance of autonomous systems through two lenses. First, we outline how different agent architectures can integrate digital twin models to enhance decision-making and reconfiguration. Second, we consider how DT technology can further support self-properties within autonomous (multi-)agent systems.

This research will involve different layers of perception of both the environment as well as the state of the physical twin itself. Determining when the perception of the state of the physical twins and the predictions made the corresponding digital twin is sufficiently trustworthy to remove the human from the loop is essential to reach autonomy. This PhD project will determine the limits and conditions for enabling autonomy in safety-critical systems as physical twins.

Project description
For technical reasons, you must upload a project description. Please simply copy the project description above and upload it as a PDF in the application.

Qualifications and specific competences
Applicants to the PhD position must have a relevant Master’s degree (120 ECTS) or at least one year of a Master’s degree with relevant courses.

The candidate has at least the following qualifications

• Cyber-physical modelling and simulation
• Digital Twins
• Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems
• Deep learning
• Probability & Statistics incl. Python/R
  

Place of employment and place of work
The place of employment is Aarhus University, and the place of work is Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Helsingforsgade 10, bygning 5123, 8200 Aarhus N., Denmark.

Contacts
Applicants seeking further information regarding the PhD position are invited to contact:

• Peter Gorm Larsen, [email protected] (main supervisor)
• Lukas Esterle, [email protected] (co-supervisor)

How to apply
Please follow this link to submit your application.

Application deadline is 18 March 2025 at 23:59 CET

Preferred starting date is 01 July 2025

For information about application requirements and mandatory attachments, please see our application guide.

Please note:

• Only documents received prior to the application deadline will be evaluated. Thus, documents sent after deadline will not be taken into account.
• The programme committee may request further information or invite the applicant to attend an interview.
• Shortlisting will be used, which means that the evaluation committee only will evaluate the most relevant applications.

Aarhus University’s ambition is to be an attractive and inspiring workplace for all and to foster a culture in which each individual has opportunities to thrive, achieve and develop. We view equality and diversity as assets, and we welcome all applicants. All interested candidates are encouraged to apply, regardless of their personal background. Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with applicable collective agreement.