The Department of Advanced Robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology (an English-language research institute), has a Post Doc opening in the research areas of Reinforcement learning and Imitation learning applied to robot control of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV).
The successful candidate will participate in a 3-year research project funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-ICT, STREP, Cognitive Systems and Robotics) called “PANDORA” (Persistent Autonomy through learNing, aDaptation, Observation and ReplAnning) which started in January 2012 (http://persistentautonomy.com/).
The project is a collaboration of five universities and institutes in Europe: Heriot Watt University (UK), Italian Institute of Technology (Italy), University of Girona (Spain), King’s College London (UK), and National Technical University of Athens (Greece).
The accepted candidate will contribute to the development and experimental validation of novel reinforcement learning and imitation learning algorithms for specific application to robot control of autonomous underwater vehicles.
The research work includes conducting experiment with AUVs in water tanks in collaboration with the other project partners. The developed machine learning algorithms will also be applied for other robots available at IIT, such as the compliant humanoid robot COMAN, the humanoid robot iCub, Barrett WAM manipulator arm, and KUKA LWR arm robot.
The research will be conducted within the “Learning and Interaction Group” (http://www.iit.it/en/advr-labs/learning-and-interaction.html) with team leaders: Dr. Petar Kormushev and Dr. Sylvain Calinon.
The salary will depend on the candidate’s experience. Policies provide additional pension and health benefits. Applicants may also qualify for reduced taxes benefits. Contracts will be for the duration of the project. Expected starting date is as soon as possible.
International applications are encouraged and will receive logistic support with visa issues. For further information please contact: Dr. Petar Kormushev (petar.kormushev AT iit.it).
APPLICATION DEADLINE: June 29, 2012
The official job posting on the IIT website can be found here:
http://www.iit.it/en/openings/research-departments/advanced-robotics-openings/1406-postdoctoral-position-in-machine-learning-for-robot-control-of-autonomous-underwater-vehicles.html