Connectionists: Professor of Robotics

[Tony Pipe]

Professor of Robotics: Provably Safe Human-Robot Interaction

Full Description of post at:

https://atsv7.wcn.co.uk/search_engine/jobs.cgi?SID=amNvZGU9MTc4NTcxNiZ2dF90ZW1wbGF0ZT0xNTM4Jm93bmVyPTUwNTUyNzgmb3duZXJ0eXBlPWZhaXImYnJhbmRfaWQ9MCZvY2NfY29kZT04ODQzJnZhY194dHJhNTA1NTI3OC4zXzUwNTUyNzg9MjAyNTA1JnBvc3RpbmdfY29kZT00OTc=

Duration of post: Permanent
Closing Date: 12 Feb 2019
Salary: £62,420 - £90,130

The Bristol Robotics Laboratory at the Faculty of Environment & 
Technology have an exciting permanent and full time position for a 
Professor of Provably Safe Human-Robot Interaction to join BRL within 
the Engineering, Design & Mathematics Department.

As the state of robotics and physically instantiated autonomous systems 
matures there is increasing emphasis on robot systems being removed from 
their historically isolated manufacturing automation domains, so that 
they can work with and amongst us to enhance our quality of life. 
Although there is no fully accepted term that defines this type of 
robot, here we refer to this as a 'service' robot.

These developments are gaining pace and so issues of safety, usefulness 
and trustworthiness are becoming paramount for robot devices that will 
operate in close proximity to human beings, or costly and easily damaged 
items. Fundamentally, it is very difficult to imagine such devices 
either being socially acceptable or getting to market without convincing 
certification arguments that will be dependent on guarantees of their 
safety and usefulness, both of which are essential components of 
trustworthiness. Therefore, a very thorough investigation into the 
criteria required to guarantee safety, including methods for its 
assessment, is necessary and timely, in order for the outcomes of this 
investigation to inform standards that are, in turn, used by regulators 
to deliver a process for product certification.

Although the application foci for this post are not restricted, and 
certainly encompass all of the 'dirty, dull and dangerous' domains, two 
exemplar areas of particular interest currently to the Bristol Robotics 
Laboratory, where such issues are rapidly becoming 'centre-stage', are 
Connected Autonomous Vehicles, where the vehicle can be viewed as a kind 
of robot that users get into, and robot care for older adults or the 
infirm, often termed 'Assisted Living'.

However, regardless of the application domain, the holder of this post 
will need to consider two main factors, both of which are inherent to 
the overall challenge of delivering a safe, useful and trustworthy robot 
service to the user. These two complementary aspects together encompass 
physical and behavioural aspects, i.e., respectively: i) the 
verification and validation processes that result in a guarantee that 
the system is designed and implemented correctly and; ii) the 
psychologically-driven contextually appropriate behaviour of the robot 
when working in and around people. A successful applicant to this post 
should, therefore, already possess in-depth expertise in one or both of 
these itemised topics.

Although the two exemplar applications given above may be typical of the 
domains to be focused on initially, the holder of this post will be 
expected to work with others in the BRL to investigate the 
appropriateness and benefits of also using the developed methods in 
other domains, e.g., in immersive teleoperation for shared control in 
robot-assisted surgery and robotics for nuclear decommissioning.

We welcome applications from gifted researchers from strongly linked 
disciplines who are fully committed to developing one or more of the 
areas of research outlined above. Those applicants, who are willing to 
exploit the full innovation pipeline via our extensive in-house business 
incubator facilities, as well as undertaking fundamental research, will 
be viewed especially favourably.

The interviews are planned for Friday 15th March 2019.

-- 
Tony Pipe
Professor of Robotics and Autonomous Systems
Deputy Director: Bristol Robotics Laboratory

Bristol Robotics Laboratory
T-Building
Frenchay Campus
Bristol UK BS16 1QY
Tel: +44 (0)117 3286330