KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm is the largest and oldest technical university in Sweden. No less than one-third of Swedens technical research and engineering education capacity at university level is provided by KTH. Education and research spans from natural sciences to all branches of engineering and includes Architecture, Industrial Management and Urban Planning. There are a total of 13,400 first and second level students and almost 1,900 doctoral students. KTH has 4,900 employees.

KTH Datavetenskap och kommunikation är en av Sveriges mest framstående forsknings- och undervisningsmiljöer inom informationsteknologi med verksamhet på KTH och delvis även på Stockholms universitet. Vi bedriver utbildning och forskning inom både teoretisk och tillämpad datalogi. Den teoretiska datalogin sträcker sig från teoribildning och analys av matematiska modeller via algoritmutveckling till implementation och simulering. Den tillämpade datalogiska forskningen och utbildningen omfattar datorseende, robotik, maskininlärning, högprestandaberäkningar, visualisering, beräkningsbiologi, neuroinformatik och neurala nätverk, samt tal- och musikkommunikation. Dessutom bedrivs tillämpad forskning och utbildning inom medieteknik, människa-datorinteraktion, interaktionsdesign och hållbar utveckling. (

Mer information om KTH Datavetenskap och kommunikation finns på www.kth.se/csc.

Job description
KTH Computer Science and Communication (CSC) announces PhD positions in robotics at the Centre for Autonomous Systems and Computational Vision and Active Perception Lab.

The Centre for Autonomous Systems is an interdisciplinary research center at KTH. CAS bridges three KTH schools, KTH Computer Science and Communication, KTH Electrical Engineering and KTH Engineering Sciences. The researched spans the areas of robotics, computer vision, machine learning and control. More details at www.kth.se/en/csc/forskning/cvap/research .

The scientific work will be conducted in the scope of the following collaborative projects:

socSMCs Socializing Sensorimotor Contingencies: We propose a novel approach for understanding and modeling social behavior and implementing social coupling in robots. Our approach presents a radical departure from the classical view of social cognition as mind-reading or maintaining internal representations of other agents. This project is based on the view that even complex modes of social interaction are grounded in basic sensorimotor interaction patterns. We will investigate socSMCs in human-human and human-robot social interaction scenarios.

roboDREAM - Optimising Robot Performance while Dreaming: Sleep! For hominids and most other mammals sleep means more than regeneration. Sleep positively affects working memory, which in turn improves higher-level cognitive functions such as decision making and reasoning. What if robots could also improve their capabilities in their inactive phases by processing experiences made during the working day and by exploring or dreaming of possible future situations and how to solve them best? In RobDREAM we will improve industrial mobile manipulators perception, navigation and manipulation and grasping capabilities by automatic optimization of parameters, strategies and selection of tools within a portfolio of key algorithms for perception, navigation and manipulation and grasping, by means of learning and simulation, and through use case driven evaluation.

IPSYS - Interactive Physical Systems: Moduli Spaces, Inference and Control: In this project, we will put focus on the modeling of dynamical systems that have the purpose of interacting with the environment, systems that based on their perceptual capabilities (sensors), control their body and primarily their arms and hands. In robotics, one recent approach has hence been to exploit topological invariances such as winding and linking numbers to control complex systems. The main novel aspect of this project is the introduction of moduli spaces for representing complex interaction tasks considering an appropriate notion of equivalence.

SaraFun - Smart Assembly Robot with Advanced FUNctionalities: While industrial robots are very successful in many areas of industrial manufacturing, assembly automation still suffers from complex time consuming programming and the need of dedicated hardware. ABB has developed FRIDA (Friendly Robot for Industrial Dual Arm Assembly), a collaborative inherently safe assembly robot that is expected to reduce integration costs significantly by offering a standardized hardware setup and simple fitting of the robot into existing workplaces. The SARAFun project has been formed to enable a non-expert user to integrate a new bi-manual assembly task on a FRIDA robot in less than a day.

CENTAURO - Robust Mobility and Dexterous Manipulation in Disaster Response by Fullbody Telepresence in a Centaur-like Robot: Disaster scenarios, like the Fukushima nuclear accident, clearly show that the capabilities of today's disaster response robots are not sufficient for providing the needed support to rescue workers. The CENTAURO project aims at development of a human-robot symbiotic system where a human operator is telepresent with its whole body in a Centaur-like robot, which is capable of robust locomotion and dexterous manipulation in the rough terrain and austere conditions characteristic of disasters.

This is a four-year time-limited position that can be extended up to a year with the inclusion of a maximum of 20% departmental duties, usually teaching. In order to be employed, you must apply and be accepted as a doctoral student at KTH. The starting date is open for discussion, though ideally we would like the successful candidate to start as soon as possible.

Qualifications

The candidate must have a master's degree in an area such as Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Informatics, Mathematics or Engineering Physics. Documented written and spoken English and programming skills are required. Experience with robotics, computer vision, control systems and machine learning is an important asset.

Applicants must be strongly motivated for doctoral studies, possess the ability to work independently and perform critical analysis and also possess good levels of cooperative and communicative abilities.

Trade union representatives

You'll find contact information to trade union representatives at KTH:s webbpage .

Application

Log into KTH's recruitment system in order to apply to this position. You are the main responsible to ensure that your application is complete according to the ad. Your complete application must be received at KTH no later than the last day of application.

Application shall include the following documents:
1. Curriculum vitae.
2. Transcripts from University/ University College.
3. Brief description of why the applicant wishes to become a doctoral student.
Please observe that all material needs to be in English, apart from the official document.

Others

We firmly decline all contact with staffing and recruitment agencies and job ad salespersons.

Type of employment: Temporary position longer than 6 months
Working hours: Full time
Salary: According to agreement
City: Stockholm
Reference number: D-2014-0696
Published: 2014-12-18
Last application date: 2015-01-30

Please state in the application that you applied via Universitypositions.eu