SUMMER INTERNSHIP - Non-Terrestrial Networks Simulation Intern

CableLabs•Louisville, CO

2d•$32 - $42

About The Position

Innovation at its Best: Join our Forward-Thinking Company At CableLabs we wake up every day to invent the future. CableLabs is a global, award-winning innovation and R&D lab dedicated to keeping people connected by building and orchestrating emergent technology and igniting co-innovation today for the broadband of tomorrow. The non-terrestrial networks (NTN) simulation intern position resides in the Wireless Technologies department at CableLabs. This department conducts research and development in new and emerging wireless technologies that include 5G, 6G, Wi-Fi, and spectrum-sharing strategies. Our team plays a crucial role in developing industry standards and technical regulatory policy for mobile and Wi-Fi network design, deployment, service delivery, and operations in licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Why This Internship Is Exciting In this role, you will be involved in NTN studies and interacting with operators, regulations, and standard bodies. The project will likely make direct impacts on industry as well as generate papers with solid contributions. The internship could be extended after the summer depending on mutual interests. With 3GPP introducing NTN into the 5G ecosystem (Rel-17/18 and beyond), spectrum coexistence between terrestrial networks (TN) and low earth orbit (LEO) satellite systems has become a critical research and engineering challenge. In this role, you will lead the development of a MATLAB-based, end-to-end NTN simulation workflow, focusing on NTN network capacity and spectrum sharing between 5G New Radio (NR) terrestrial macro networks and LEO-based NTN systems. The internship is engineering-driven with strong research depth.

Requirements

The Candidate must be pursuing a Ph.D. Degree in Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or a similar field with an emphasis on Telecommunications.
Comprehensive knowledge of wireless communications, radio propagation channels, antenna, MIMO, and key physical layer and MAC layer techniques.
Hands-on experience with simulation tools such as MATLAB, or C/C++/Python.

Nice To Haves

Strong knowledge of 5G NR physical layer design and familiarity with 3GPP NTN (Rel-17/18).
Background in satellite communications and LEO systems is a plus.
Understanding of spectrum and regulatory considerations about NTN–TN coexistence.
Solid experience of wireless propagation and interference modeling, including terrain/clutter effects and spatial-domain interference.
Hands-on experience with MATLAB-based link-level and/or system-level simulations.
Experience with ray tracing or spatial analysis tools is a plus.
Strong analytical and quantitative skills with demonstrated research capability.

Responsibilities

Design, implement, and validate both link-level and system-level simulation frameworks to evaluate interference, spatial coupling, and spectrum efficiency under realistic deployment scenarios.
Develop and extend a link-level simulation framework to analyze cellular and NTN coexistence in shared spectrum bands.
Incorporate realistic channel models, including path loss, shadowing, fading, and interference coupling between cellular and NTN links.
Simulate interference scenarios and assess performance metrics such as SINR, throughput, latency, packet error rate, and detection probability.
Model LEO constellation geometry and multi-beam architectures, capturing beam footprint evolution, frequency reuse, and beam-level spatial interference with terrestrial macro cells.
Generate interference heatmaps and spatial analysis (e.g., ray tracing–based modeling where applicable) to quantify TN/NTN coupling.
Analyze the impact of transmit power, antenna model, indoor/outdoor scenario, sensing thresholds, and duty cycles on coexistence performance.
Validate simulation results against standards specifications and available measurement or reference data.
Document simulation assumptions, methodologies, and findings in technical reports, papers, and presentations.
Collaborate with senior engineers/researchers to refine models and explore new coexistence techniques.