PhD Student Position in Robot Learning for Mobile Manipulation

The Aalto Robot Learning research group operates in the intersection of artificial intelligence and robotics. In particular, we focus on developing methods for reinforcement learning, robotic manipulation, decision making under partial observability, imitation learning, and decision making in multi-agent systems. The goal of the research group is to help robots understand what they need to learn in order to perform their assigned tasks, and, thus, make robots capable of operating on their own and pro-actively help humans. To accomplish these goals the research group develops novel decision making methods and uses these methods to solve unsolved robotic tasks. For more information, please see https://rl.aalto.fi

The Robot Learning research group is seeking a talented PhD student with strong interest in Robot Learning and Mobile Manipulation.

The main task of the doctoral candidate will be to develop methods for mobile manipulation and utilize them on real robots such as our Boston Dynamics Spot robot with a Spot arm. The developed methods may be based on one of our focus areas including, but not limited to, reinforcement learning, planning under uncertainty, or imitation learning. The goal is to allow robots to operate in unstructured partially observable real-world environments such as those found in construction or households where the environments change and are not fully known beforehand.

The exact direction of the research is chosen depending on your experience and interests. Please relate clearly to some of the research topics in your Letter of Motivation.

Your background
Outstanding students and researchers from the areas of Machine Learning, AI, and Robotics and related areas including Reinforcement Learning, Control Engineering, Computer Vision, Statistics & Optimization, or Mathematics & Physics are welcome to apply. The candidate is expected to conduct independent research and at the same time contribute to the topics listed above. Successful candidates can furthermore be given the opportunity to work with undergraduate, M.Sc. and PhD students.

The research group collaborates with research groups in computer vision, robotics, construction, mobile heavy machines, human-robot interaction, reinforcement learning, imitation learning, multi-agent systems, under-water vehicles, and robot motion planning. Moreover, two of the PhD students in the research group are located at the Intelligent Autonomous Systems institute at TU Darmstadt, Germany so there will be ample opportunities for international collaboration.

We offer
The position will be filled for a period of 1+3 years. The starting date is in November 2021 or as mutually agreed. The salary will be based on both the job requirements and the employee’s personal performance in accordance with the salary system of Finnish universities. A typical starting salary for a doctoral candidate is approximately 2500 EUR/month. The salary increases with experience.

We offer a wide range of staff benefits, such as occupational health care, flexible working hours, excellent sports facilities on campus and several restaurants and cafés on campus with staff discounts.

How to apply
Please submit your application through our online recruitment system using this link “Apply”. The closing date for applications is October 24, 2021 (23:59 EEST (GMT+3)). Please write your application and all the accompanying documentation in English and attach them in PDF format.
Please attach only the following documents to your application (max 5MB):
•    A letter of motivation and description of your research interests (max. 1 page)
•    Curriculum vitae (including the contact details of two referees).
•    A list of publications (if any) as a part of the curriculum vitae
•    PDF copy of your MSc and BSc degree certificates, including transcripts of all university records and their English translations (Finnish and Swedish certificates are also accepted)

Please note: Aalto University’s employees and visitors should apply for the position via our internal system Workday -> find jobs (not external aalto.fi webpage of open positions) by using their existing Workday user account.

Additional information
For further information, please contact Assistant Professor Joni Pajarinen, [email protected] . Additional information in recruitment process related questions, please contact HR Coordinator Jaana Hänninen, [email protected] .

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