Research Associate on Pinching Antenna Systems

Job reference: SAE-032480
Salary: £37,694 - £46,049 per annum depending on relevant experience
Faculty/Organisational Unit: Science and Engineering
Location: Manchester
Employment type: Fixed Term
Division/Team: Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
Hours Per Week: 1 FTE
Closing date (DD/MM/YYYY): 20/10/2026
Contract Duration: 36 Months
School/Directorate: School of Engineering

The University of Manchester (www.manchester.ac.uk) enjoys a global reputation for its research and its innovative approach to learning, with a £1 billion investment in facilities, staff and new engineering buildings that fully opened in 2022. This builds on our tradition of success that stretches back over 180 years. We are at the forefront of the search for solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges, with strong collaborative links with industry and public services.

The Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) at the University of Manchester is one of the largest departments in its discipline in the UK. The Communications and Signal Processing research group has the combined strength of communication systems, microwave engineering, and signal processing. With 13 academic staff and over 70 PhD students, research associates and visitors, it is one of the largest groups in the UK specialising in mobile wireless networks, antennas and propagation, RF and microwave sensors and tomographic systems, radar, signal analysis and processing.

The post is funded by a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) on “Pinching Antenna Systems (PASS) – A New Paradigm for Wireless Network Designs”. The aim of this project is to investigate a new type of flexible-antenna systems, PASS, whose core concept is to activate pinching antennas by applying small dielectric particles, e.g., plastic pinches, onto a dielectric waveguide. A prototype demonstrated that strong LoS communication links can be established by this simple, low-cost pinching mechanism. With a stepper motor, a pinching antenna can be dynamically deployed near the receiver to establish the strong LoS link, achieving ultra-high spectral and energy efficiency. This architecture creates a new paradigm for future mobile networks and is currently one of the most active research topics in wireless communication.

Purpose of the Job

This post will support a recently awarded grant conducting ambitious research on the development of PASS. The scope of work ranges from the development of a theoretical framework to the designing of a practical transceiver. The goal of this project is to advance the technology readiness level of PASS for commercial adoption. In particular, these are the project objectives:

• Characterize the communication theoretic fundamentals of PASS;
• Design spectrally efficient and low-overhead channel estimation algorithms for PASS;
• Develop sophisticated transceiver designs to realize the full potential of PASS;
• Investigate two crucial applications of PASS, namely NOMA and ISAC.

The project is led by the University of Manchester, and involves the University of Essex and three industrial partners. The post holder will work collaboratively with project partners to deliver high‑quality research on PASS and ensure the successful completion of all project objectives.

Enquiries about the role, shortlisting and interviews

Name: Professor Daniel So

Email: d.so@manchester.ac.uk

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Applications close at midnight on the closing date.