Post-doctoral fellowship in "Hardware architecture for the automatic design of robot swarms"

We are recruiting a post-doctoral fellow with a background in mechatronics / electronics engineering / robotics / embedded systems. The post-doctoral fellow will perform their research in the framework of the DEMIURGE project, a research project funded by the European Commission via an ERC Consolidator Grant.

The scope of the DEMIURGE project is the automatic design of robot swarms. Our goal is to advance the state of the art in swarm robotics by developing the DEMIURGE: an intelligent system that is able to design and realize robot swarms in a totally integrated and automatic way. The DEMIURGE is a novel concept. Starting from requirements expressed in an appropriate specification language, the DEMIURGE will design all aspects of a robot swarm: hardware and control software. It will do so by automatically casting the design problem into an optimization problem and tackling it in a computation-intensive way. The DEMIURGE will not create the design of a robot swarm from scratch: it will operate on a number of preexisting software and hardware modules. It will obtain candidate designs by properly assembling these modules and fine-tuning their parameters.

The DEMIURGE project is hosted by IRIDIA, the artificial intelligence laboratory of the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. IRIDIA is a leading laboratory that is world-renowned for its contributions to swarm intelligence, collective robotics, and automatic design/fine-tuning of algorithms.

The research to be performed by the post-doctoral fellow will focus mostly on:

• the definition of the general hardware architecture of the robots to be designed by the DEMIURGE;
• the conceptual definition of the set of hardware modules on which the DEMIURGE will operate;
• the analysis of the functionalities that these hardware modules provide;
• their actual design and realization.

Profile, skills, and experience

• Doctoral degree in mechatronics / electronics engineering / robotics / embedded systems
• Background in mobile robotics, multi-robot systems, and embedded systems architecture
• Experience in hardware development, electronics and mechanical design
• Proficiency in English; excellent oral communication and writing skills

Recruitment restrictions

• Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in Belgium for more than 24 months in the last 36 months immediately prior to the appointment
• Candidates must have obtained their doctoral degree no more than 8 years before the appointment

Conditions

Fellowship of 24 months, possibly renewable for a further 12 month period.

Estimated net monthly allowance: 2400 EUR.

The Université libre de Bruxelles is an equal opportunity employer.

Benefits:

• inspiring, dynamic, and intellectually challenging research environment
• international and interdisciplinary research team
• resources for short visits abroad, participation in conferences, and open-access journal publication
• social security coverage including medical insurance, parental leave, and child benefits. Unemployment benefits and retirement pension are included for EU citizens and citizens of several non-EU countries that have a bilateral social security agreement with Belgium
• insurance against accidents in the workplace
• tax exemption
• low-cost private hospitalization insurance
• on-site services at the ULB including: medical centre, university hospital, sports centre, subsidized restaurants, cultural centre, crèche, and activities for children

How to apply

Applicants should send an email to info@demiurge.be including:

• a motivation letter (maximum 1 page)
• CV and list of publications
• a writing sample — e.g, a chapter of the doctoral dissertation, a representative article (between 10 and 30 pages)
• names of two academic/professional references — after a pre-selection, we might ask the applicant to provide a letter from these references

Deadline

August 15, 2017. Candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. The position will remain open until filled by a suitable candidate

Further information

See http://demiurge.be and/or contact us at info@demiurge.be