Open PhD studentship at EPFL (Switzerland) in Design and control of compliant modular robots.
The Biorobotics laboratory (Biorob, http://biorob.epfl.ch/) at EPFL (Lausanne, Switzerland) anticipates to have one open PhD studentship in design and control of compliant modular robots, starting onDecember 2010. The position will be funded by the National Competence Center in Research (NCCR) in Robotics that will start on December 2010 with various institutions in Switzerland. The position is fully funded. It will involve interactions with several other
robotics groups in Switzerland.
Background
The goal of the PhD thesis will be to participate to the design and control of compliant modular robots capable of different types of locomotion. There will be a strong focus on hardware implementations by reusing and extending existing hardware available in the Biorobotics Laboratory (see the Roombots and Salamander robot projects). Another strong focus will be the use of controllers based on systems of coupled nonlinear dynamical systems (e.g. oscillators)
together with optimization and learning algorithms.
Requirements:
Candidates need to have a Master degree in a field related to robotics e.g. in Mechanical or Electrical Engineering, Computer Science, or Physics. The ideal candidate for this position should have a strong robotics background (having worked with and designed real hardware, e.g. in legged and/or modular robotics), good programming skills, and a solid mathematical background.
How to apply:
Step 1: The position is only open to applicants who have been accepted by the EPFL doctoral school (see http://phd.epfl.ch/). The first step is therefore to fill the applications for one of the doctoral programs, the most relevant being “Manufacturing Systems and Robotics” (deadline September 15th!!), “Computer, communication and information sciences” and “Electrical Engineering”.
Step 2: Once accepted by one of the doctoral programs (please specify which doctoral program and the date of acceptance), the application to the position should be sent by email to Prof. Auke Ijspeert and consist of a motivation letter (explaining why you are interested in the project, and why you feel qualified for it) and a copy of the doctoral program application.
Informal inquiries about the relevance of an application can be sent to auke.ijspeert@epfl.ch (e.g. before or while submitting an application to the doctoral school), but responses can be slow because of a heavy schedule and a filled mail box.
Deadline and starting date:
Applications will be considered continuously until the position is filled. The ideal starting date is the 1st of December 2010 (or as soon as possible after that date). Note that the first deadline is the application to one of the EPFL doctoral programs, e.g. the one in “Manufacturing Systems and Robotics” (deadline September 15th!!)
Contact:
Information concerning the type of research carried out by the group can be
found at http://biorob.epfl.ch/. You should send your application and any
inquiry by email to:
Prof. Auke Jan Ijspeert, auke.ijspeert@epfl.ch
EPFL, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
EPFL STI IBI BIOROB
INN 237
Station 14
CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland
WWW: http://biorob.epfl.ch/
PhD Studentship in Design and Control of Compliant Modular Robots
