Internship and thesis opportunities
Are you ready for your next wave?
At Psicontrol, we believe that we can help you to catch the next wave! We will assist you in terms of defining the subject of your thesis by talking about your interests and aligning them with our expertise. Hence, we will be able to offer you a project that will not only suit you, but also one that you will be passionate about.
In addition, interns or thesis students are welcomed as member of our team and are given tasks that closely relate to our ongoing projects. A personal coach will guide you along every step of the journey with a view to both realizing your goals and optimizing your experience.
Proposed subjects 2022-2023
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Development of an active load
Description
Development of an active load to generate an efficiency graph of DC/DC convertors from minimum to maximum load. The active load can also be used for evaluation and qualification of new batteries.Your task
- Concept research of active loads and create a conceptual block diagram.
- Create a schematic and layout in Altium.
- Simulate your design in LTSpice.
- Test and debug final solution in our lab.
Contact
For more information, please contact Sven Maes or Luc Van Asch:
e-mail: sven.maes@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 57 409 602
e-mail: luc.vanasch@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 57 409 672. -
Sensorless stepper motor
Description
A conventional stepper motor uses an open loop drive circuit with no feedback to the controller. Adding a position sensor adds complexity and increases the overall cost of the drive system. A sensorless algorithm that estimates the motor position based on current and voltages could prove useful for detection of step loss and/or even increase dynamic performance with a field-oriented control drive system.
Your task- Technology status for commercial available sensorless stepper drivers.
- Develop a DAQ system for current, voltage and encoder signals.
- Determine the properties of a stepper motor.
- Simulation of a sensorless stepper motor algorithm in MATLAB/Simulink.
- Verification of a sensorless stepper motor algorithm on real world measurements.
Contact
For more information, please contact Jeroen Trachet:
e-mail: jeroen.trachet@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 57 409 653. -
Contactless current sensor
Description
Select and evaluate a contactless current sensor. This type of sensor is placed above a trace and senses the generated magnetic field induced by the current that is flowing. Those types of sensors have some specific layout requirements to reduce stray field effects and have a trustworthy output signal.
Develop a test board with one or several sensor types and evaluate their stability, current range and allround behavior.
Your task- Market study of the possible sensors.
- Make a design with the new current sensor or adapt one of our motor drives to implement such a sensor.
- Evaluate the behavior in all working points.
- Report the good and bad practices with this kind of sensor.
Contact
For more information, please contact Niels Deblieck:
e-mail: niels.deblieck@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 57 229 647.
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Camera detection with AI
Description
For our customers in the vending machine market the user friendlyness can increase when the desired product can be presented on an HMI before the end user has interacted with the vending machine. Therefore the goal is to add camera detection and AI to low cost microcontroller platforms and combine this with an existing GUI or with an own customized GUI.Your task
- Add camera detection to microcontroller products.
- Investigate how AI can help to reach the goal.
- Create your own GUI screens that interact with the end user.
- Extra possibility: combine this with speech.
Contact
For more information, please contact Jan Coopman:
e-mail: jan.coopman@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 57 409 691. -
4” connected display with E-paper technology
Description
Most thermostats and room controllers use display technologies that are not fit for low power consumption. The goal is to create a low power equivalent with E-paper technology and push for the limits on power consumption!Your task
- Optimize hardware/software for low power usage.
- Find the most suited battery technology.
- Integrate an E-paper display.
- Compare consumption with other display technologies (amoled, ...).
- Design and implement a GUI that doesn’t need a lot of refreshes.
Contact
For more information, please contact Jürgen Logie:
e-mail: jurgen.logie@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 57 229 677. -
Secure over-the-air update of Linux systems
Description
Companies save a lot of time and money when they can update products remotely. The goal is to find and work out a secure and reliable solution to update firmware over-the-air. In addition, updates must also be distributed to underlying systems that are not directly accessible from the cloud.Your task
- Search and evaluate existing frameworks on security, reliability, ...
- Implement the firmware update process on a hardware platform running Linux.
- Implement the firmware update process for a slave controller which is connected with the target processor that’s running Linux.
Contact
For more information, please contact Yoshi Vermeire:
e-mail: yoshi.vermeire@psicontrol.com or tel. +32 470 394 742.
Propose your own topic
Is your preferred subject not listed here? Don’t worry, we can still do our very best to provide you with an internship or thesis subject that is perfect for you.
Contact us via jobs@psicontrol.com or +32 57 409 696 to set up a meeting in which you can tell us about your interests so that we can propose a suitable subject for you.
Testimonials
Julien Rouaix
Electronics and Informatics / Lille, France
My school shared information about Psicontrol and the company sparked my interest. Choosing a subject and figuring out my project went smoothly because the communication and information I received were very clear.
I joined the Psicontrol team for a period of 4 months to work on a challenging project regarding the Psicontrol display debug board. I was allowed to deliver the entire embedded software project from system drivers to application layer.
The goal of this project was to simplify the Psicontrol electromagnetic tests. The project was very rewarding for me. My skills have improved massively and I’ve gained a lot of knowledge because I had the opportunity to work with lots of different materials and technologies.
I really appreciated the warm welcome, the helpful colleagues, and the great atmosphere. My collegues even invited me to their teambuilding so I really felt part of the team. I’m thankful that I’ve gotten the chance to do my internship at Psicontrol!
Tom Lierman
Electronics-ICT / Ghent
For a period of five weeks, I joined the Psicontrol embedded software team where I played a role in a project writing a protocol analyzer tool.
Psicontrol is a very pleasant place to work. There’s a friendly atmosphere within the team and everyone is at every moment willing to help and answer any questions. The good mentoring ensured that my challenging and fun project turned out well. My internship was the ideal opportunity to get a taste of working at Psicontrol.
In the meantime, I have started working at Psicontrol as Junior R&D Engineer. Now I’m part of the design team where I get the opportunity to create embedded control solutions for different applications and customers. Via coaching and on-the-job training from experienced colleagues, we can further develop ourselves and to take the initiative. It is a pleasure to further improve my professional skills through being both coached and challenged by experienced engineers.