PhD Position for Safe Human-Robot Interaction

24.10.2024, Wissenschaftliches Personal

The research group Cyber-Physical Systems of Prof. Matthias Althoff at the Technical University of Munich offers a PhD/Postdoc position in the area of safe human-robot interaction. The Technical University of Munich is one of the top research universities in Europe fostering a strong entrepreneurial spirit and international culture.

Expected Starting Date: 01 February-01 May 2025

Closing Date for Applicants: 15 December 2024

Duration: 3-4 years (depending on preference of applicant).

Project and Job Description

The focus of this position is on developing provably safe reinforcement learning methods for human-robot interaction. A special focus will be on ensuring human safety but also on improving task efficiency and alignment with human preferences compared to traditional planning algorithms. By combining reinforcement learning with reachability analysis, the solution space will be reduced so that safe plans can be found more reliably under strong real time constraints. The candidate should demonstrate the developed algorithms on a real robot. One possible application is in construction robotics, where we collaborate with several industrial partners.

Previous Work

Safe modular robots:

https://robotics.sciencemag.org/content/4/31/eaaw1924/

Safe reinforcement learning for human-robot interaction: 

https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/node?id=1691362

Job Specifications

• Excellent Master’s degree (or equivalent) in computer science, engineering, or related disciplines (typically mathematics, physics).
• Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
• Good programming skills in at least one programming language, e.g. MATLAB, C/C++, Python.
• Highly motivated and keen on working in an international and interdisciplinary team.
• Applicants with strong background in the following fields are preferred:
  • Robotics
  • Reinforcement learning
  • Control theory, signals and systems
  • Reachability analysis
  • Software engineering
     

Context

The applicant will be directly advised by Prof. Matthias Althoff (https://www.ce.cit.tum.de/cps/members/prof-dr-ing-matthias-althoff/). Besides excellent skills for conducting innovative science, the candidate should also be talented in implementing research results on a real robot and lead teams of students.

Our Offer

PhD remuneration will be in line with the current German collective pay agreement TV-L E13 (around 4200 Euros/month in the first year, 4500 Euros/month second year). The Technical University of Munich is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity. We explicitly encourage women to apply and preference will be given to disabled applicants with equivalent qualifications.

Contact

International candidates are highly encouraged to apply. Please submit your complete application (in English or German) via our application form: https://wiki.tum.de/display/cpsforms/Ph.D.+Application. Fill out all mandatory fields (*) and kindly use “Safe HRI” as the “Title of Position”. Please do not include a cover letter.

Further similar job offerings will be announced on https://www.ce.cit.tum.de/cps/open-positions/.

Kontakt: matthias.mayer@tum.de