PhD in security and integrity of communications - LCIS

Grenoble INP - Institute of Engineering; France; Sur place; EUR 40 000 - 60 000; Plein temps

Résumé du poste

A leading engineering institute in France is offering a PhD position focused on developing methods for adaptive security in cyber-physical systems. The candidate will work on innovative projects utilizing multi-agent systems and digital twins to address critical questions related to data security and integrity. This role requires a Master's degree in a relevant field and strong skills in autonomous and embedded systems. The position starts on 2nd February 2026, with a deadline for applications on 4th January 2026.

Qualifications

• Master's degree or equivalent in a relevant field is required.
• Background in research related to engineering is preferred.

Responsabilités

• Develop methods for adaptive security in data exchange for cyber-physical systems.
• Model and monitor CPS behavior using digital twins and multi-agent systems.
• Address the security and integrity of data exchanges among heterogeneous devices.

Connaissances

Autonomous systems

Embedded systems

Prototyping and Simulation of Digital Systems

Formation

Master's in Computer Science

Master's in Embedded Systems

Master's in Cybersecurity

Description du poste

Organisation/Company Grenoble INP - Institute of Engineering Department Engineering Research Field Engineering Researcher Profile Other Profession Positions PhD Positions Country France Application Deadline 4 Jan 2026 - 20:00 (Europe/Paris) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Offer Starting Date 2 Feb 2026 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

Offer description : The development of cyber-physical intelligent systems requires aggregating numerous data from heterogeneous devices. Nevertheless, when these systems must ensure critical missions, guaranteeing security properties in an adaptive way for the data exchanged such as integrity or confidentiality becomes a necessity. These properties are often partly guaranteed by the use of dedicated resources (hardware and software), however with the systems heterogeneity and constraints, the usual resources are not always available. Modeling autonomous systems using the multiagent paradigm allows representing the different roles or actors of the system. The sensors and actuators of the physical system, used to accomplish several objectives simultaneously, can be represented by agents contributing to the decision-making.

Since decentralization is an essential point of multi-agent systems (MAS), information processing can be planned locally at the agent level without requiring centralized control or decision-making; however without excluding feedback for decision-making at a higher level of the system. Agents act autonomously and cooperatively to achieve their local and global objectives within the system.

Project summary: For the H4 project, we propose to develop methods to ensure an adaptive security level for the exchange of data reported by sensors and used in decision-making of autonomous vehicle supervision systems. A main a question is to study how to secure and make reliable data from constrained devices that do not have specific security elements allowing the implementation of conventional mechanisms, requiring a particular cryptographic effort and advanced key management. The previous work on LCIS allowed the development of a public key infrastructure for multi-agent systems (MAKI - Multi-Agent Public Key Infrastructure) designed to secure embedded multi-agent systems whose classic characteristics are openness and heterogeneity [ICCAART23, Baudet23]. Moreover, a study on the complementarity of approaches based on digital twins (DT) and multi-agent systems made it possible to set up an architecture for modeling and monitoring communications to secure them [SHIFT24, SECURWARE24].

Each physical component of a CPS (sensor) is represented by a physical agent and its digital twin (virtual agent). Digital twins are used to model and monitor the CPS behavior and take advantage of the feedback loop of the digital twins to simulate and analyze in real time the physical and software states, while SMA are useful to ensure communication and distributed decision making. The alliance of SMA and DT aims to improve attack detection and CPS resilience.

Main goals: A main objective of the thesis is to define methods allowing to collect useful and necessary data for monitoring security and safety at the system communications level. Modeling via SMA allows for the autonomy and cooperation of agents to implement adaptive security based on criteria related to transport or communications status. Decentralization aims to reduce single points of failure and improve scalability, and the integration of digital twin will be used for real-time monitoring and better understanding of vulnerabilities. A second objective is to build an architecture to take advantage of these two complementary approaches. On one hand, the multi-agent paradigm promotes decentralization and coordination and on the other hand, an architecture with digital twins allows to model surveillance, to strengthen the security of the CPS.

The thesis will thus address the following issue: "How to ensure the security and integrity of exchanges between heterogeneous and potentially constrained equipment in a critical cyberphysical system" while (1) respecting performance constraints; (2) being implantable on all hardware resources without specific security resources and (3) being compatible with the main standardized protocols such as DDS or MQTT and implementing security standards [ISO/IEC 27005]. For the proof of concept of the research results, case studies and scenarios will be developed for the validation of the approaches and the proposed architecture. They will be based on the use of existing communication standards and can exploit open datasets or the implementation of synthetic data.

Where to apply

E-mail [e-mail]

Requirements

Research Field Engineering Education Level Master Degree or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

• PhD Student Profile:
  • Master's in Computer Science
  • Master's in Embedded Systems
  • Master's in Cybersecurity
• Skills:
  • Autonomous systems, embedded systems
  • Prototyping and Simulation of Digital Systems