PhD/Postdoc Position for Motion Planning for Collaborative Autonomous Vehicles

22.12.2021, Wissenschaftliches Personal

The research group Cyber-Physical Systems of Prof. Matthias Althoff at the Technical University of Munich offers a PhD/Postdoc position in the area of motion planning for collaborative autonomous vehicles. The Technical University of Munich is one of the top research universities in Europe fostering a strong entrepreneurial spirit and international culture.

Expected Starting Date: 15 February 2022-01 May 2022

Closing Date for Applicants: 31 January 2022

Duration: 3 years with a possible extension (individual duration for Postdocs).

Project and Job Description

Automated driving will unquestionably provide a variety of benefits, including the reduction of traffic accidents, traffic jams, and mobility barriers (too young or old to drive). It is unanimously agreed among experts that the benefits of automated driving can only be fully used when vehicles cooperatively adapt to each other. A major obstacle towards this promising future is to guarantee in a mathematically provable way that the automated system always works correctly in diverse environments with varying road and weather conditions and a varying degree of collaboration of traffic participants. This endeavor is especially challenging since each traffic situation is different and thus automated driving cannot be verified beforehand, requiring that the vehicle verifies itself periodically given the current traffic situation.

We address the important requirement to guarantee safe, correct, and coordinated motion of automated vehicles by establishing a framework, which integrates the consideration of traffic rules, cooperative maneuver- and trajectory-planning, and formal verification in a unique framework to provide intrinsic correctness. We will specify traffic rules and further specifications with temporal logics. These specifications will be checked using reachability analysis.

The developed methods should be tested in our research vehicle. Since physical test drives are costly and time-consuming, it is advantageous to accompany them with computer simulations. In order to automatically generate challenging traffic scenarios, we will also use the developed methods to control other traffic participants in a way that challenges the collaborative group. The generated traffic scenarios should also be included in our benchmark suite CommonRoad (

). It is also expected that the applicant continues the development of CommonRoad.

Previous Work

Job Specifications

• For PhD applicants: Excellent Master’s degree (or equivalent) in computer science, engineering, or related disciplines (typically mathematics, physics).
  
• For Postdoc applicants: Excellent track record in computer science or engineering.
  
• Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
  
• Good programming skills in at least one programming language, e.g. MATLAB, C/C++, Python.
  
• Highly motivated and keen on working in an international and interdisciplinary team
  
• Applicants with strong background in the following fields are preferred:
  
• Autonomous vehicles
  
• Robotics
  
• Motion planning
  
• Control theory
  
• Logics
  
• Model-based testing

Context

The applicant will be directly advised by Prof. Matthias Althoff (

). Besides excellent skills for conducting innovative science, the candidate should also be talented in implementing research results within the CommonRoad framework and lead teams of students.

Our Offer

PhD remuneration will be in line with the current German collective pay agreement TV-L E13 (around 4300 Euros/month). Technical University of Munich is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity. We explicitly encourage women to apply and preference will be given to disabled applicants with equivalent qualifications.

Contact

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Kontakt: Gerald Würsching