Fully-funded PhD position in Autonomous Exploration and 4D Mapping by Mobile Service Robots

Faculty of Science – School of Computer Science, University of Lincoln, UK

Salary grade – competitive

A PhD position is available in the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems Research (L-CAS) at the University of LincolnUK. The position is fully funded for 3 years, including tuition fees, a bursary at the current RCUK doctoral stipend levels, and participation in international conferences and other activities as required by the project.

This project is part of an FP7 project called STRANDS (http://www.strands-project.eu), involving 30+ people, of whom a team of 4 already work at L-CAS (http://robots.lincoln.ac.uk). In the overall project we investigate autonomous mobile robots that must perform 4D mapping in human environments. By this we mean producing not just a map of space (3D mapping), but also of the activities that occur within that space. Such activity maps are necessary for robots to act autonomously within a space shared with humans for long periods of time.

The PhD position is offered in the area of autonomous exploration to complete and refine the acquired 4D maps. The successful candidate will be expected to design, conduct and publish original research on this topic, including developing novel approaches for mobile robot exploration that help to maximise the information gain in spatio-temporal maps, while taking into account the dynamics, changes and evolving activities that occur in real world environments. The studentship offers the opportunity to engage in international collaboration within an ambitious team, to work with state-of-the-art robotic hardware and software, and to benefit from excellent support to produce and disseminate original research contributions.

You should have a Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mathematics or Physics. You should have excellent mathematical and coding skills (C++/Python, ROS), and be available to start work on the project around October 2013.

In the first instance please contact Tom Duckett and Marc Hanheide (tduckett@lincoln.ac.uk, mhanheide@lincoln.ac.uk), with your CV and transcript.  Put “STRANDS PhD application” in the subject line.  Deadline for applications is the 31st August 2013.