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TUD Dresden University of Technology, as a University of Excellence, is one of the leading and most dynamic research institutions in the country. Founded in 1828, today it is a globally oriented, regionally anchored top university as it focuses on the grand challenges of the 21st century. It develops innovative solutions for the world's most pressing issues. TUD has established the Research Training Group "AirMetro - Technological & Operational Integration of Highly Automated Air Transport in Urban Areas" (RTG 2947), funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). This interdisciplinary group, involving five faculties and the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), will conduct research on 11 research topics. The goal is to address the technical and social challenges of Innovative Air Mobility (IAM), considering ecological, economic, technological, and sociological factors. The RTG's structured PhD program aims to train young researchers in highly automated, networked mobility, featuring international collaboration with mentors from the USA, Asia, and Europe. TUD and the RTG embody a university culture that is characterized by cosmopolitanism, mutual appreciation, thriving innovation and active participation. For TUD diversity is an essential feature and a quality criterion of an excellent university. Accordingly, we welcome all applicants who would like to commit themselves, their achievements and productivity to the success of the whole institution.

The Research Training Group RTG 2947 "AirMetro", funded by the DFG, offers a position, as

Research Associate / PhD Student (m/f/x)

(subject to personal qualification employees are remunerated according to salary group E 13 TV-L)

starting May 1, 2026. The position is limited until April 30, 2029. The period of employment is governed by the Fixed Term Research Contracts Act (Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz - WissZeitVG). The position aims at obtaining further academic qualification (usually PhD).

Job ID:                      RTG2947-T-10/2

Title:                         Fail safe, Distributed Digital Twin for Innovative Air Mobility (IAM) Operations

Supervisor:              Prof. Dr. Uwe Assmann, Chair of Software Technology and co-supervised by at least one additional professor plus an international tutor of the RTG

Description of the PhD topic: 

This PhD project focuses on the development of fail-safe, distributed digital twins (DTs) for urban air mobility applications. Existing research model multiple UAVs as a single shared entity in a centralized Digital Twin (DT), which poses safety risks to IAM operations if the cloud or central database becomes unavailable.

The research will investigate methods for safe drone control by integrating a digital twin of the urban operational environment, including landing sites, with the fundamental flying characteristics of each UAV. Simulated sensor data from a digital shadow will be incorporated to maintain cyber-physical consistency between the UAVs’ status in the model and in the real world. A key goal is to develop methods for distributing bigraphical world models using Conflict-free Replicated Data Types (Bigraph-CRDT) and to extend these methods for the general distribution of DT data, ensuring high availability and resilience.

The project also explores human or automated UAM management interaction with multiple UAVs, providing an immersive spatial interface (XR: AR/VR) to plan missions, monitor operations, and manage UAV swarms. Applications focus on disaster response, logistics, and dense urban UAV operations without reliance on a single cloud backbone, with potential transferability to industrial or U-space operations.

The full job advertisement can be found at: https://tu-dresden.de/vacancy/12620