Internship Topics

Apply to one of the internship topics we have for you this year!

This year, CTM is offering you 13 internship topics, covering three of the eight Scientific Domains of INESC TEC:

  • AI – Artificial intelligence
  • BIO – Bioengineering
  • COM – Communications
  • CSE – Computer science and engineering
  • PES – Energy systems
  • PHT – Photonics
  • ROB – Robotics
  • SEM – Systems engineering and management

Look up the several internship topics that are hosted by CTM in detail by following this link. The descriptions contain each topic’s objectives, work plan, and supervisors.

Pick up to 3 topics that interest you the most, and fill in the application form indicating them in order of preference. We will try to match you with the topics that interest you the most!

Here you can find a summary of each topic, sorted by Scientific Domain, and a direct link to each topic description and workplan. Each topic is identified by a reference, for example, [AI01]. Use these references to fill out the application form. Each topic also describes where and how the internship will take place, in the following format:

Internship Location: [Centre] [Specific Location (optional)] [Internship Regime]

The regime may be “In-person Only”, “Hybrid”, or “Fully Remote”.

For topics in other Scientific Domains, visit INESC TEC’s website and look for more information on INESC TEC’s Summer Internships, where more topics will be available after April 16th!

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Ref. [AI01]
Overlay Information on Satellite Imagery

“In this project, we want to combine different data sources (imagery metadata, mapping APIs) to extract information from a dataset of satellite images with the objective of overlaying information about the built infrastructure on the images.”

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:
Paula Viana (paula.viana@inesctec.pt)
Nuno Pereira (nuno.a.pereira@inesctec.pt) 

Ref. [AI02]
Building Detection and Footprint Segmentation

“Satellite imagery is a powerful source of information for urban development, mapping, and first responders, and we are working on extracting information from these images. In this project, we want to explore a dataset of satellite images and test different building segmentation approaches on it.”

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:
Nuno Pereira (nuno.a.pereira@inesctec.pt) 
Pedro Carvalho (pedro.m.carvalho@inesctec.pt) 

Ref. [AI03]
Image processing for analyzing grocery labels

“Handling food products is part of everyday life, but understanding the information present is not always easy, especially for people with less training or with low levels of literacy. In this internship, the aim is to develop modules that can run on a smartphone, identify, and extract information present in labels using visual data in images or video. The theme of this internship is part of the European Watson project that is being developed. “

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:  
Pedro Carvalho (pedro.m.carvalho@inesctec.pt) 
Christina Mastralexi (christina.mastralexi@inesctec.pt) 

Ref. [AI04]
Making Sense of Ordinal Images Without Labels

“The internship consists of training a neural network classifier without requiring labels, and it consists of two stages: (Stage 1) applying one (or more) self-supervised learning methods to learn a latent representation for the image; (Stage 2) using a clustering method, such as k-means, to project the images onto groups. A particular emphasis is given to ordinal images – these are images where the predictive variable is discrete, Y ∈ {C₁, C₂, …, Cₖ} with a well-defined ranking, C₁ ≺ C₂ ≺ … ≺ Cₖ. (…) “

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisor:
Ricardo Cruz (ricardo.p.cruz@inesctec.pt)

Ref. [AI05]
Creative Diffusion: Exploring Logo Design with Diffusion Models

“The main objective of this internship is to explore logo design using text-to-image and image-to-image generative models for the creation of Logos representative of research projects with VCMI participation. We aim to explore pre-trained implementations of diffusion models, possibly complementing the results with known image-processing techniques such as edge enhancement and smoothing to create stunning displays for the VCMI projects. For this work, the student will explore frameworks like Pytorch and Diffusers for hands-on experience on a Machine Learning application with a direct impact on the VCMI website. “

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:
Rafael M. Mamede (rafael.c.maia@inesctec.pt)
Pedro C. Neto (pedro.d.carneiro@inesctec.pt) 
Ana F. Sequeira (ana.f.sequeira@inesctec.pt) 

Ref. [AI06]
Fine-Tuning of Large Language Models for Multi-modal Perception

“Explore the feasibility of using multimodal LLMs to analyze and interpret channel state information (CSI), incorporating additional data sources like images and point clouds.”  

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (1 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:  
Francisco Manuel Ribeiro (francisco.m.ribeiro@inesctec.pt)
Luís Manuel Pessoa (luis.m.pessoa@inesctec.pt)

Communications (COM)

Ref. [COM01]
Automated Drone Positioning through an LLM-based Interface in Flying Networks of the Future

“The networks of the future, namely 6G Networks and the future Wi-Fi generations, are being designed to allow ever-increasing data rates and low latency requirements, as well as high reliability for a large number of connected devices. The main objective of this summer internship is to develop a framework that takes advantage of LLMs to automate the positioning of drones in flying networks. This work will benefit from an existing Application Programming Interface (API) to control the positioning of drones and an LLM-based interface previously created.”

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:
Pedro Ribeiro (pedro.m.ribeiro@inesctec.pt)
André Coelho (andre.f.coelho@inesctec.pt)
Prof. Rui Campos (rui.l.campos@inesctec.pt)

Ref. [COM02]
Performance Evaluation of Semantic Underwater Wireless Communications

“Semantic communications are an emerging paradigm that operate on the principle of “semantic-meaning passing”. At its essence, semantic communications involve extracting the inherent “meanings” embedded within transmitted information at the sender’s end. By leveraging a compatible knowledge base (KB) shared between the sender and the receiver, semantic information can be effectively “interpreted” at the receiver’s end. Thus, semantic communciations can be a good addition to a underwater communications solution, for instance, running on the top of an acoustic or a radio channel, delivering information to the receiver when high data rate solutions are unavailable. This summer internship aims to evaluate the performance of semantics in an underwater wireless network, validating an existing algorithm through experimental tests.”

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (3 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:
João P. Loureiro (joao.p.loureiro@inesctec.pt)  
Filipe B. Teixeira (fbt@inesctec.pt)  
Rui Campos (rcampos@inesctec.pt) 

Ref. [COM03]
Obstacle-aware vision-based Positioning Algorithm for a Simple Scenario

“In this internship, we’ll be tackling this challenge head-on by providing Line of Sight (LoS) to users through the use of UAVs. In the first phase of this work, we detect the position of the users by capturing photos or videos from the venue automatically. These photos or are captured by a camera installed on the UAV. Then coordinates information of user equipment are extracted using vision tools and utilized for the positioning approach. The performance of the proposed solution is evaluated using Network Simulator 3 (ns-3). With this positioning algorithm, we aim to provide wireless connectivity to all users, even in the most challenging scenarios. Together, we will be helping to ensure that people stay connected when it matters most. “

(Note: this topic requires English proficiency).

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid] (2 In-person days per week)
Supervisors:
Kamran Shafafi (kamran.shafafi@inesctec.pt) 

Ref. [COM04]
Starlink Performance Evaluation

“This internship is part of the OVERWATCH project, which addresses the development of a backup communications solution for emergency scenarios, complementary to existing communications infrastructure, and capable of supporting the operation of systems and emergency teams in case of failure of the primary communications due to malfunction, overload, or lack of network coverage in a given location. This communications solution is based on a Tethered Drone, consisting of aerial and terrestrial components, interconnected by an energy cable and optical fiber. (…) Since this technology is very recent and Starlink’s infrastructure is constantly evolving, it will be important to characterize in detail the performance of this backhaul connection to understand the impact it can have on the quality of service (QoS) offered by the Tethered Drone. This work appears precisely in this context, having as main objective the evolution of a framework for the periodic evaluation of the network performance, which allows the statistical characterization of the connection based on different performance metrics such as bidirectional throughput, delay, and jitter.”

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid]
Supervisors:
Helder Martins Fontes (helder.m.fontes@inesctec.pt)
Rúben Queirós (ruben.m.queiros@inesctec.pt)
Rui Lopes Campos (rui.l.campos@inesctec.pt)

Ref. [COM05]
Comparative study of antenna characterisation systems from 30 to 300 GHz

“6G brought the trend towards higher operating frequencies from millimetre waves up to the sub-THz, for both wireless communications and sensing applications, which recent research projects are currently addressing. In this context, it is important to be able to characterise radiating systems such as antennas and antenna arrays (such as reconfigurable intelligent surfaces) operating in this frequency band. There are different types of measurement systems such as standard far-field, compact test range in the far-field, spherical, cylindric and planar near-field. “

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid]
Supervisor:
Luis Pessoa (luis.m.pessoa@inesctec.pt)

Ref. [COM06]
Sensing through NFC-enabled smartphone

“There has been recent progress in the field of battery-less NFC-enabled sensors, namely low cost commercially available NFC integrated circuits (ICs) that are compatible with standard smartphones (e.g. Silicon Craft SIC4340). Therefore, a simple battery-less tag can be transformed into a sensor that can be read through a smartphone, which in turn can be used as reader and at the same time as a potential interface to the cloud. “

Internship Location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [Hybrid]
Supervisors:
Cândido Duarte (manuel.c.santos@inesctec.pt)
Luis Pessoa (luis.m.pessoa@inesctec.pt)

Bioengineering (BIO)

Ref. [BIO05]
Biophotonics

“The application of optical technologies in clinical practice has been growing in the past 30 years. In the present day there are various diagnostic, treatment or surgical methods that use light. The Biophotonics research is a worldwide reality nowadays and with strong growth, producing new applications with the combination of temporary transparency effects in tissues, or with artificial intelligence methods to produce reliable diagnosis. With this summer internship, it is our objective to describe the Biophotonics research that is being done at INESC TEC and stimulate the interest of graduation and master students for this field of research.“

Internship location: [CTM] [INESC TEC] [In-person] 
Supervisor:
Luís Manuel Couto Oliveira (luis.m.oliveira@inesctec.pt)