Master Thesis: IMU Drift Compensation

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About this opportunity

We're looking for students interested in radar sensing, inertial navigation and signal processing to support our research on the evolution of 6G. This master thesis project will investigate how radar-derived motion and range information can be combined with measurements from an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) to reduce accumulated drift and improve motion-tracking accuracy. The work will be conducted in collaboration with our researchers at the device platform research organization within Ericsson.

The project’s target is to develop and demonstrate a radar-assisted IMU motion tracking solution. The primary challenge, and research topic, is to estimate complementary motion information from radar measurements and fuse it with inertial data while accounting for sensor calibration, coordinate alignment and timing. The work will explore signal-processing and sensor fusion techniques, with the goal of demonstrating improved tracking stability compared with IMU-only solutions.

We are seeking a student with a strong interest in communication technology and hands-on experience or interest in algorithm development and experimental implementation.

What you will do

• Conduct a literature study summarizing the prior art in IMU drift compensation, radar odometry, radar and IMU calibration, and multi-sensor fusion.

• Develop a baseline IMU-based motion-estimation chain and characterize how sensor errors accumulate under representative motion conditions.

• Investigate how radar measurements, such as range and radial velocity, can provide complementation motion information for continuous drift correction.

• Define and implement methods for synchronizing, calibrating and aligning radar and IMU measurements in time and space.

• Investigate and implement a suitable sensor-fusion approach, for example a Kalman-filter-based or optimization-based method, to combine radar-derived inertial motion estimates.

• Analyze and evaluate the performance of the radar-assisted solution. This includes qualifying tracking accuracy and drift reduction, studying robustness under different motion and environment conditions, and comparing the result with IMU-only tracking and a suitable reference measurement.

Demonstrate the developed approach in hardware-based proof-of-concept and document results, limitations and recommendations for future work.

The skills you bring

• Final year master's student in Electrical Engineering, Engineering Physics or similar with background of electromagnetics.

• Genuine interest in radar sensing, inertial navigation, wireless communication and hardware implementation.

• Experience in simulation tools such as C/C++, MATLAB and Python. Experience with C/C++ is an advantage

• Knowledge of probability, linear algebra, coordinate transformations, optimization or Kalman filtering is beneficial.

• Eagerness to learn, ambition, an innovative mindset and the ability to collaborate effectively.

• Fluent in English, both verbal and written communication.

Please include your transcripts with your application

Extent: Assumed two students

Location: Lund, Sweden

Additional information: The detailed technical scope, experimental setup and implementation priorities will be refined together with the selected students. The thesis work must follow applicable confidentiality, information-security, intellectual-property and research-ethics requirements.

Why join Ericsson?

At Ericsson, you´ll have an outstanding opportunity. The chance to use your skills and imagination to push the boundaries of what´s possible. To build solutions never seen before to some of the world’s toughest problems. You´ll be challenged, but you won’t be alone. You´ll be joining a team of diverse innovators, all driven to go beyond the status quo to craft what comes next.

What happens once you apply?

Click Here to find all you need to know about what our typical hiring process looks like.

Encouraging a diverse and inclusive organization is core to our values at Ericsson, that's why we champion it in everything we do. We truly believe that by collaborating with people with different experiences we drive innovation, which is essential for our future growth. We encourage people from all backgrounds to apply and realize their full potential as part of our Ericsson team. Ericsson is proud to be an Equal Opportunity Employer. learn more.

Primary country and city: Sweden (SE) || Lund

Req ID: 791129