Research Associate in Trustworthy Human-Robot Interaction

We have an exciting opportunity within the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering at Imperial College London for one Research Associate (postdoctoral researcher) to work on algorithms for enabling intelligent collaborative robots to measure, acquire and maintain appropriate levels of trust during human-robot interaction in complex unstructured environments. A key research focus will be assistive robots for healthcare scenarios, for example smart assistive robot wheelchairs, and mobile robot manipulators for assisting people in home and hospital settings.

You will become a member of the Personal Robotics Laboratory (led by Professor Yiannis Demiris , Royal Academy of Engineering Chair in Emerging Technologies), an interdisciplinary  team of 20 postdoctoral, PhD and MSc researchers, with significant expertise in human-robot interaction, assistive robotics, mobile robot manipulation and learning, human-centred computer vision, vehicle intelligence, machine learning and user modelling. Our research laboratory has a long tradition of ensuring that our theoretical contributions are implemented and evaluated on real robot systems, assisting people in home, hospital and commercial environments.

This Research Associate position on Trustworthy Human-Robot Interaction is of one year duration, subject to standard probation periods, with a possibility of extension. The desired start date of the post is on the 15th of June 2022 (with some degree of flexibility), and the salary will be based on your level of relevant experience*.

You will be working closely with research staff and doctoral students at the Personal Robotics Laboratory at Imperial, as well as our academic collaborators at the Department of Computer Science and Department of Psychology of Herriot Watt University, and the Department of Computer Science of University of Manchester, as part of the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems programme (Research Node on Trust), an interdisciplinary flagship research programme of UKRI.

You will be designing, implementing and evaluating algorithms for equipping robots with the ability to represent, measure and manage trust during human-robot interaction. We are looking for passionate people that are determined to see their algorithms working in real robot systems assisting people, and enjoy working in interdisciplinary research groups for advancing challenging research goals.

Your position will involve:

• Designing & implementing algorithms for equipping robots with the ability to represent, measure and manage trust during human-robot interaction from human behavioural and physiological signals.
• Integrating and evaluating your research algorithms both at the Personal Robotics Laboratory as well as in collaboration with our academic and commercial research partners in diverse applications.
• Analysing data from field trials for algorithm improvement, writing reports for submission to research sponsors, presenting findings to colleagues and at conferences, and submitting publications to refereed journals.
• Assisting in the supervision of undergraduate and postgraduate research students and research assistants as required.

We are looking for people with a PhD in either Computer Science, Robotics, Machine Learning or Electrical Engineering, or closely related disciplines. Ideally you will have:

• Published excellent quality papers in one or more of: robotics, human-robot interaction, machine learning, augmented reality, or related research topics.
• Substantial practical experience in a broad range of technical areas including one or more of: software engineering in complex embedded systems (e.g. multi-DoF robots), machine learning, computer vision, user modelling, human signal processing, augmented reality, or human-computer interaction
• Knowledge of machine learning algorithms as pertaining to human-centred spatiotemporal data acquired by vision and wearable sensors (e.g. human state perception and action recognition, or human modelling).
• Advanced software engineering skills, including developing and maintaining complex software systems in C++/Python, preferably in real-time embedded systems such as robots.
• Experience in applying for, and obtaining, ethics-board approvals for collecting data from user trials.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Willingness to work as part of a team and to be open-minded and cooperative both internally and with external project partners.

*Candidates who have not yet been officially awarded their PhD will be appointed as Research Assistant within the salary range £36,694 - £39,888 per annum.

For informal enquiries about the post please contact Professor Yiannis Demiris at [email protected].

Queries regarding the application process should go to Joan O’Brien at [email protected] . For technical issues when applying online please email[email protected]

Further information about the post is available in the job description.