[agents] 2 positions: Postdoc (Vision) + Research Engineer (Social Robotics)

[Alexandre Pauchet]

*Post-doctoral position* (1 year): Perception for interaction and social 
navigation

*Research Engineer* (1 year): Social Human-Robot Interactions

*Laboratory*: LITIS, INSA Rouen Normandy, France

*Project*: INCA (Natural Interactions with Artificial Companions)

*Summary*:

The emergence of interactive robots and connected objects has lead to 
the appearance of symbiotic systems made up of human users, virtual 
agents and robots in social interactions. However, two major scientific 
difficulties are unsolved yet: on the one hand, the recognition of human 
activity remains inaccurate, both at the operational level (location, 
mapping and identification of objects and users) and cognitive 
(recognition and tracking of users’ intentions) and, on the other hand, 
interaction involves different modalities that must be adapted according 
to the context, the user and the situation. The INCA project aims at 
developing artificial companions (interactive robots and virtual agents) 
with a particular focus on social interactions. Our goal is to develop 
new models and algorithms for intelligent companions capable of (1) 
perceiving and representing an environment (real, virtual or mixed) 
consisting of objects, robots and users; (2) interacting with users in a 
natural way to assess their needs, preferences, and engagement; (3) 
learning models of user behavior and (4) generating semantically 
adequate and socially appropriate responses.

*Post-doctoral position in perception for interaction and social 
navigation (1 position)
*

The candidate will work to ensure that a robot can recognize the 
physical content of the scene surrounding him, recognize himself, static 
and dynamic objects (users and other robots) and finally predict the 
movement of dynamic elements. The integration of data from different 
sensors should allow the mapping of an unknown environment and estimate 
the position of the robot. First, VSLAM techniques (Visual Simultaneous 
Localization And Mapping) (Saputra 2018) will be used to map the scene. 
The regions (or points) of interest detected could
then be used to detect obstacles. In order to distinguish between static 
and dynamic objects, methods of separating the background from the 
foregound of the scene (Kajo et al, 2018) will be used. Finally, some 
recent techniques of the Flownet 2.0 type (Eddy et al, 2017), for the 
prediction of the motion on a video sequence should make it possible to 
predict the next movement of an object dynamic object and the to 
apprehend its behavior.

Profile: the candidate must have strong skills in mobile robotics and 
navigation techniques (VSLAM, OrbSlam, Optical Flow, stereovision...) 
and a high programming capacities under ROS or any other programming 
language compatible with robotics. Machine learning and Deep learning 
skills will be highly appreciated.

*Research Engineer in Social Human-Robot Interactions (1 position)*

The hired research engineer will work closely with the INCA research 
staff (permanent, PhD and post-doctoral members) and other project 
partners. This will mainly involve administering the project's Pepper 
robots, developing the necessary tools, integrating the algorithms 
developed with the AgentSlang platform (https://agentslang.github.io/) 
and join the team created to participate in the Robocup 2020 in 
Bordeaux, @Home league.

Profile: Computer Sciences / Robotics Engineer

  *

    Good level in programming (ROS, Python, possibly Java)

  *

    Strong knowledge in robotics

  *

    Experiences in some of the following areas would be a plus
    (non-exhaustive list): machine learning, human-machine social
    interactions, scene perception, spatio-temporal and semantic
    representation, natural language dialogue.

*Duration and remuneration*: 1 year, 2480euros/month (gross salary)

Application should be sent to: alexandre.pauchet at insa-rouen.fr

  *

    Curriculum vitae

  *

    Cover letter

  *

    Recommendation letters

  *

    Recently graduated students: transcripts

  *


-- 
Alexandre Pauchet
Associate Professor HDR
INSA Rouen Normandie - ASI Department - LITIS Lab
Phone: +33(0)2 32 95 98 58
Web:http://asi.insa-rouen.fr/enseignants/~apauchet/

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