The Partners of the EU-funded (FP7) collaborative project HANDLE invite motivated young scientists, in the fields of robotics, to apply for Ph.D. scholarships.

The HANDLE project aims at understanding how humans perform the manipulation of objects in order to replicate grasping and skilled in-hand movements with an anthropomorphic artificial hand, and thereby move robot grippers from current best practice towards more autonomous, natural and effective articulated hands. The project implies not only focusing on technological developments but also working with fundamental multidisciplinary research aspects in order to endow the robotic hand system with advanced perception capabilities, high level feedback control and elements of intelligence that allow recognition of objects and context, reasoning about actions and a high degree of recovery from failure during the execution of dexterous tasks.

Successful candidates must hold an excellent academic degree (MSc/Diploma) in an engineering discipline related to robotics, have a strong interest in bio-inspired research, and have a good level in both written and spoken English.

All applications should include a cover letter indicating the motivation and research interests of the candidate, a CV including a list of publications, proof of academic qualifications and should provide the names and contact details of two referees.

Applications will be considered until all positions have been filled. Interested candidates are invited to contact the centre of their choice from:

• Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6- France). Véronique Perdereau (veronique.perdereau at upmc.fr)
• Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain). Dr. Mohamed Abderrahim (mohamed at ing.uc3m.es)
• University of Coimbra: Faculty of Science and Technologies (Portugal). Dr. Jorge Dias (jorge at deec.uc.pt)
• King's College of London (UK). Dr Kaspar Althoefer (K.Althoefer at kcl.ac.uk) or Prof. Lakmal Seneviratne (lakmal.seneviratne at kcl.ac.uk)
• Örebro University (Sweden). Dr. Boyko ILIEV (boyko.iliev at oru.se )
• Hamburg University (Germany). Prof. Jianwei Zhang (zhang at informatik.uni-hamburg.de)
• Instituto Superior Técnico (Lisbon Portugal). Dr. Alexandre Bernardino (alex at isr.ist.utl.pt) or Prof. José Santos-Victor (jasv at isr.ist.utl.pt).

(Added April 12, 2009).

The work will be carried out with the DEMAR research team in Montpellier city and with the clinical center PROPARA localized in Montpellier as well.

This PhD thesis will be co-supervised by Christine AZEVEDO (PhD), David GUIRAUD (PhD), P. Fraisse (PhD) and Charles Fattal (MD) More information

(Added April 12, 2009)

A PhD scholarship in Prognostics and Health Management including diagnosis and prognosis problems applied to mechatronic systems is possibly available at FEMTO-ST (Besancon, France) from September 2009.


BACKGROUND:
Prognostics of failure modes in (dynamical) industrial systems is a process that allows to predict long-term future state of a component and / or a set of components. To do that, methods often based on techniques of artificial intelligence and statistics are used to evaluate the difference between a nominal mode and the current mode. The latter can evolve towards the former and thus, the interest of the prognostics process is to avoid reaching the mode of failure that often means more damage for the system and problems of functioning safety.


OBJECTIVE:
A "prognostics" system is generally composed of two parts. The first part is the detection of signs of wear, often based on techniques from signal processing, e.g. wavelet-based filtering. The second part, on which this thesis will be focused, is the detection of a deviation from the nominal model up to the prediction of the remaining useful life before failure. Most methods currently employed in the literature fall into the category of "statistical" methods, in particular they are based on both probability theory and of graphical models. These methods take into account the uncertainty of data in the construction of the model prediction, but are based on the assumption that prior information needed to build these models are available in sufficient quantity and quality. This hypothesis requires to generating data which can be expensive and time consuming for a company. To solve this problem, it might be interesting to use other methods for modelling uncertainty such as "belief functions" which generalize probability measures and allow to taking into account the lack of prior information. These models could then be refined and adapted while new knowledge is being injected into the system over time. The aim of the thesis is thus to explore the theoretical framework of belief functions for the construction of prognostics models.


More info: http://www.abg.asso.fr/offre_voir.php?offre=71909&lg=en

(Added 2009-03-15.)

To extend our R+D team, we are recruiting junior computer scientist, mathematicians and engineers. Their robotic research and technology development will cover the fields of automatic planning, robust machine intelligence, learning and optimization, visual computing and human machine interaction. Responsibilities, tasks and job description will be developed together with the candidates considering their prior experience and interests.


In addition to individual elaborated ones, responsibilities include:

• Pre-development of new SW technologies, methods and algorithms within corporate or cooperative R&D projects
• SW Development of Tools for automated on-line or off-line planning and programming
• Research in corporate, national and international financed research projects
• Lead/Management of SW-development projects, small and medium sized research projects and applied projects

Applications should hold a Master/Dipl.-Ing. in Computer Science / Mathematics / Engineering with background in software engineering and interest or experience in some of the topics:

• Robotics
• Automated Planning
• Simulation
• Computer Graphics or Computer Games or Visual Computing
• Professional SW Engineering, Development of Algorithms in C++ and C#
• Development of complex SW-Systems

Please find more information at www.convergent-it.at (Job Offers) or contact Christof Eberst: ce.convergent-it at ris.at mobile: +43-681 10722671.


Please send applications to office at convergent-it.at

(Added 2009-03-15.)

Immediate opening for a Ph.D. student at ETH Zurich in the area of micromanipulation of biological organisms. The Multi-Scale Robotics Lab in the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich has two immediate Ph.D. openings. The research project the candidate will pursue is related to the manipulation of actively growing individual plant cells and the manipulation of protein fibers.


Please email your resume and list of references directly to Brad Nelson (bradley.nelson at iris.mavt.ethz.ch). The positions will be filled once excellent candidates are found.

(Added 2009-03-15.)

Applications are invited for a 3-year PhD studentship to investigate new algorithms for planning and/or scheduling under uncertainty with continuous actions for surface mining operations, to commence in July 2009, or as soon as possible thereafter. Application deadline: 30 April 2009

Contact: Dr Pantelis Elinas p.elinas at acfr.usyd.edu.au

(Added February 8th, 2009.)

The Robot Learning Group at the Swiss AI Lab IDSIA is currently seeking 5 excellent PhD students with experience / interest in topics such as adaptive robotics, curiosity-driven learning & intrinsic motivations based on the theory of surprise and interestingness, computer vision, reinforcement learning & policy gradients for partially observable environments, artificial evolution, recurrent neural networks (RNN), RNN evolution, hierarchical reinforcement learning, statistical / Bayesian approaches to machine learning, statistical robotics, unsupervised learning, general artificial intelligence, universal learning machines.

(Added February 8th, 2009.)

There are several job openings at the Jacobs University Robotics Group
(http://robotics.jacobs-university.de).
The positions are suited for candidates at postdoc as well as doctorate
student level. Furthermore, there is an opening for a technician:


1) Postdoc or PhD position "3D Underwater Perception and Mapping". The
candidate should have experience in underwater mapping, especially in
form of applied knowledge of available commercial range sensors.
Experience with high resolution underwater sensors, especially imaging
sonars is an asset for this position. The ideal candidate has a degree
in Computer Science, but candidates with a background in Electrical
Engineering are also welcome.


2) Postdoc or PhD position "Underwater Multi Robot Simulation". The
candidate should have experience with high fidelty 3D robot simulators
like USARsim or Gazebo, respectively with general 3D visualization and
physics engines. Previous work within underwater robotics is an asset
but not a must. The ideal candidate has a degree in Computer Science.


3) Postdoc or PhD position "Cognitive AUV Control". The candidate should
have experience with high level, deliberative control and mission
planning, ideally in the context of underwater robotics. Previous work
on cooperative systems or semantic mapping is an additional asset. The
ideal candidate has a degree in Computer Science.

4) Research Technician. The candidate should have experience with system
integration and the development of mechatronics. Previous work on the
hardware side of mobile robots is an asset. The candidate should be
experienced with electronics design software (e.g. Eagle) or CAD
software (e.g., Autocad, SolidWorks). Excellent German language skills
(spoken and written) are required for this position for interactions
with local companies.


Send applications to Andreas Birk a.birk AT jacobs-university.de with Mrs. Marta Mueller mar.mueller AT jacobs-university.de on cc.


(Added 2009-01-26.)

The EU Planning your Career page.

The EU Human Potential Programme vacancies, events and research opportunities.

See also the Robotics and Automation Open Positions List

The Institute for the Protection and the Security of the Citizen (IPSC) job site for Doctoral and Post-doctoral Researchers is always worth looking at.

Info on funding, research opportunities, and the practicalities of living in different countries is available on www.europa.eu.int/careers/

Those looking for funding might like to start with the Marie Curie Fellowships, which provide European placements for pre and post-doctoral researchers, usually up to the age of 35, and for experienced researchers. Fellowships are available in any scientific discipline that contributes to the objectives of the Fifth Framework Programme (FP5). Applicants to this activity are young and experienced researchers and host organisations in academia and industry.

Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUVs) vacancies can be found on FREESUBNET.

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EMARO, the European Master on Advanced RObotics, is an integrated Masters course in the framework of the European Union ERASMUS-MUNDUS programme.

The Erasmus Mundus programme is a cooperation and mobility programme of the European Union in the field of higher education which promotes the European Union as a center of excellence in learning around the world. It aims to enhance quality in European higher education and to promote intercultural understanding through co-operation with third-countries See more on the Erasmus Mundus web site.

The Erasmus Mundus programme supports high-quality European Masters Courses, by providing attractive grants for students (having excellent academic results) and visiting scholars (academic and professionals) from around the world to engage in postgraduate study at European universities, as well as by encouraging the outgoing mobility of European students and scholars towards third-countries.