Research Fellow/ Senior Research Fellow in Robotics and Machine Learning

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The appointment will be at Research Fellow/Senior Research Fellow level, Grade 8/9, Salary: £44,414 –  £63,059, fixed term opportunity for 12-18 months. 

Heriot-Watt University has established a reputation for world-class teaching and leading-edge, relevant research, which has made it one of the top UK universities for innovation, business and industry.

Heriot-Watt University has five campuses: three in the UK (Edinburgh, Scottish Borders and Orkney), one in Dubai and one in Malaysia. The University offers a highly distinctive range of degree programmes in the specialist areas of science, engineering, design, business and languages. Heriot-Watt is also Scotland’s most international university, boasting the largest international student cohort.

Detailed Description

We are actively looking for a talented researcher in robotics and machine learning  to work on the Prosperity Partnership project between Heriot-Watt and Seebyte Ltd.

The Project Vision is to develop a coherent framework that enables humans and machines to work as a team by establishing and maintaining a single shared view of the world and each other’s intents through transparent interaction, robust to a highly dynamic and unpredictable maritime environment. We aim at removing workers from harsh and extreme environments to replaced them with teams of smart robots able to do the ‘dirty and dangerous jobs’, collaborating seamlessly as a team with each other and with human operators and experts on-shore. In this new world, remote data collection, fusion and interpretation become critical, together with the ability to generate actionable decisions from this data, sending remote robots to perform actions autonomously.

You will join the Edinburgh Centre for Robotics, a joint venture between Heriot-Watt University and the University of Edinburgh which has established itself as one of the largest and most visible robotics research centres in the UK, building on a strong tradition in robotics in each university. Since its creation in 2014, we have secured £120M of investment in infrastructure, a Centre for Doctoral training (EPSRC), enabling us to recruit over 15 PhD students per year and very recently the £30M ORCA Robotics Hub (EPSRC) in Robotics and AI for Offshore Asset integrity management. There has therefore never been a better time to join us and be part of a truly unique endeavour in the UK and probably in the world. Details on the activities of the centre can be found at http://www.edinburgh-robotics.org/ . We have also recently established the National Robotarium, a new research centre working at the interface of academia an industry to promote adoption of leading-edge robotics solutions in the real world.

The Prosperity Partnership project is a collaboration between Heriot-Watt University and SeeByte Ltd, a spin out of Heriot-Watt (2001) and now a world leader in autonomy solutions in the maritime domain. Sponsored by EPSRC, this 3 years project will explore fundamental research in advanced autonomy and human machine teaming and apply the results of the research to uses cases of relevance to SeeByte Ltd.  The multidisciplinary research team currently being assembled between Heriot Watt and SeeByte (10 people) will address key scientific challenges including enhanced machine-machine teaming, robust perception and human machine interaction and explainability.

The position advertised here (Research Fellow in Robotics and Machine Learning) looks at using the latest machine learning methods, specifically for two main areas of research:

Robust robotic perception:  including continual learning of real and simulation environmental data; common scene understanding for unmanned systems collaborating across multiple domains; and Quality Assurance.

Human-machine interaction and explainability: using natural language and vision to explain decisions made by machine learning methods; and human-in-the-loop joint optimisation of user and system objectives to manage user trust and facilitate human-robot teaming.

The researchers will be supported by an experienced professional team for project management, outreach, and industry liaison. You will also receive complementary training in a range of areas (robot ethics, outreach, commercialization, etc…) and will be offered numerous professional development opportunities to maximize your career development. 

Candidates will have a PhD in engineering, computer science or a related area. You will be working as part of a large team of researchers and we expect excellent communication and teamwork ability from any candidates to these positions.

Duties and Responsibilities

The Research Fellow and Investigators will closely collaborate: there will be regular meetings throughout the project, as well as larger project management meetings that the Research Associates will be expected to attend. The Research Fellow/Associate shall:

• take a leading role in co-ordinating the work within the framework defined by the project, and as defined by the Investigators;
• organise his or her own work and time in order to meet the deadlines and milestones as defined within the project, or as modified after discussion with the Investigators;
• keep the Investigators and other relevant individuals informed of progress;
• take a lead role in writing proposal, collaborating with Investigators in writing research proposals to seek further funding and technology pull through;
• co-supervise potential PhD students who will be collaborating on the project;
• interact with other Research Associates/Fellows and Ph.D. students working on related projects;
• lead the reporting of progress to our sponsors and industrial partners via reports, website updates and any other means as defined by the investigators;
• engage positively with our industrial collaborator;
• lead the organisation of workshops and conferences as necessary;
• manage the development of technology demonstrators for your work and the collaborative work undertaken with other RAs;
• define processes and protocols for the setup and maintenance of a shared code and data base to foster collaborative work with other RAs in our research group.

Education, Qualifications and Experience

The ideal candidate will have the following skills:

Essential:

• Excellent mathematical skills in devising and analysing robotics algorithms.
• Hold a PhD, or equivalent research experience
• At least 3 years post-doc or industry experience
• Demonstrated ability to lead research in machine learning, preferably in a robotics area
• Demonstrated ability to publish in major international journals/confernces in the field.
• Ability to carry out independent research
• Ability to lead a team
• Excellent written and oral presentation skills
• Software programming skills appropriate for simulation work and algorithmic development

Desirable:

• Previous experience in marine robotics.
• Experience in working in large collaborative projects.
• Experience of ROS environment
• Previous experience in human-computer/human-robot-interaction

Supervision

You will be supervised by Prof Yvan Petillot and Dr Sen Wang.

‘How to Apply’

Please must submit via the Heriot-Watt on-line recruitment system (1) Cover letter describing their interest and suitability for the post; (2) Full CV that includes the list of publications

For informal discussions about the position or the department, please contact Professor Yvan Petillot by email at [email protected] . 

Heriot-Watt University is committed to securing equality of opportunity in employment and to the creation of an environment in which individuals are selected, trained, promoted, appraised and otherwise treated on the sole basis of their relevant merits and abilities.  Equality and diversity are all about maximising potential and creating a culture of inclusion for all.

Heriot-Watt University values diversity across our University community and welcomes applications from all sectors of society, particularly from underrepresented groups. For more information, please see our website https://www.hw.ac.uk/uk/services/equality-diversity.htm  and also our award-winning work in Disability Inclusive Science Careers https://disc.hw.ac.uk/  .

We welcome and will consider flexible working patterns e.g. part-time working and job share options.

Use our total rewards calculator: https://www.hw.ac.uk/about/work/total-rewards-calculator.htm  to see the value of benefits provided by Heriot-Watt University.

2 new Research Fellows will work on developing a national capability in Digital Twinning to enable transport decarbonisation, by informing a large consultation on its structure, membership and research agenda. With the opportunity for an immediate start, we seek experienced and organised researchers to support an extensive range of consultation activities, including focus groups, open and semi-structured interviews, as well as workshops. The applicant will be part of a unified Heriot-Watt and University of Glasgow team, consisting of academics, researchers, business development staff and expert consultants. The successful applicants will support stakeholder engagement, coordination of activities and analysis of qualitative and quantitative feedback. The role provides a unique and high profile opportunity to establish extensive and valuable network connections, and to be central to the co-creation of a strategic national research agenda in Digital Twinning for Transport.