PhD in Collaborative Exploration for Intelligent Mobile Robots (1.0 FTE) (V24.0614)

The continuous developments in technologies such as wireless communications, robotics, sensing, and artificial intelligence, have been greatly promoting the evolution of cyber-physical systems in both conceptual designs and engineering applications. Mobile intelligent systems of heterogeneous constructions, interconnected often in a dynamic topology, are being deployed in various applications, including autonomous driving, search and rescue, smart factories/agriculture/healthcare, etc.

In this project, we consider a system of robotic agents that are wirelessly networked for exploring an unknown environment, with each agent equipped with multi-modal sensors and smart-edge computing onboard. We aim to develop principled methodologies and practical solutions for multi-agent semantic scene understanding towards reaching collaborative intelligence in real-world search and rescue tasks. Following the spirit of open science, all research deliverables, including papers, datasets, and code, will be open-sourced.

The PhD will be embedded in the double PhD programme between the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia. You will have the unique opportunity to be jointly supervised by experts at both universities, spend time at each campus and upon successful completion of the programme, graduate from both universities with a PhD.

Organisation
Founded in 1614, the University of Groningen enjoys an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative institution of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Flexible study programmes and academic career opportunities in a wide variety of disciplines encourage the 34,000 students and researchers alike to develop their own individual talents. As one of the best research universities in Europe, the University of Groningen has joined forces with other top universities and networks worldwide to become a truly global centre of knowledge.

Within the Faculty of Science and Engineering of University of Groningen, a 4-year PhD position is available and jointly affiliated with Bernoulli Institute (BI) for Mathematics, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, and Engineering and Technology institute Groningen (ENTEG).

The PhD student will work at BI under the supervision of Dr. Kailai Li (https://kailaili.github.io/) within his team focusing on agile sensing and intelligence (https://asig-x.github.io/), and jointly supervised by Prof. Ming Cao (https://www.rug.nl/staff/m.cao/), Chair of the group of Discrete Technology & Production Automation (DTPA) at ENTEG.

The PhD will start and spend the first 2 years on campus at the University of Groningen and the next 2 years at Macquarie University. The position at Macquarie will be hosted by supervisors Dr. Yan Li (https://researchers.mq.edu.au/en/persons/yan-li) and Prof. Michael Sheng (https://web.science.mq.edu.au/~qsheng/) within the School of Computing.

Macquarie University will fund a living allowance scholarship at an annual rate of AUD 38,500 (tax exempt), paid pro-rata, while the student is in Australia. Macquarie will also provide an airfare allowance for flights between The Netherlands and Australia up to a maximum of $4,000 AUD.

The successful candidate should

• Have a master’s degree in computer science, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, or similar from an internationally visible university with excellent academic results.
• Be willing to devote great dedication to curiosity-driven research and be a good team player.
• Be excellent at both oral and written communication in English (see https://www.rug.nl/education/phd-programmes/prospective/phd-positions/english-language-requirements for specific requirements.)
• Have solid knowledge in mathematics and be happy to “get hands dirty” with hardware and real-world experiments.
• Have very solid programming skills in Python and C++ as well as popular deep learning libraries such as PyTorch.
• Have a knowledge background in robotics and machine learning, and experience with developing real-time systems in ROS/ROS2 using sensors such as RGB-D, LiDAR, and IMU sensors.

At the University of Groningen for the first 2 years, we offer you, following the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities

• A salary of € 2,901 gross per month in the first year and € 3,378 gross per month in the second year for a full-time working week.
• A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income and an 8.3% year-end bonus.
• A full-time position (1.0 FTE). The successful candidate will first be offered a temporary position of one year with the option of renewal for another one year at the University of Groningen. Prolongation of the contract is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that a successful completion of the PhD thesis within the next three years for the double PhD programme is to be expected. A PhD training programme is part of the agreement and the successful candidate will be enrolled in the Graduate School of Science and Engineering.

Application should include

• Letter of motivation.
• CV (including contact information for at least two academic references).
• Transcripts from your bachelor’s and master’s degrees.

You can submit your application until 14 January 11:59pm / before 15 Jan 2025 Dutch local time (CET) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

Applications received before 15 Jan 2025 will be given full consideration; however, the position will remain open until it is filled.

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

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