Connectionists: Research Fellow in Connected Autonomous Vehicle Simulation for Safety Assurance

[Tony Pipe]

Research Fellow in Connected Autonomous Vehicle Simulation for Safety 
Assurance

Full Description of post at: 
https://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BSG701/research-fellow-in-connected-autonomous-vehicle-simulation-for-safety-assurance

Location:             Bristol, UK
Salary:                 £33,199 to £39,609
Hours:                 Full Time
Contract Type:     Fixed-Term/Contract for 24 months
Closes:                19th June 2019
Job Ref:                R00131

Bristol Robotics Laboratory (BRL) is the most comprehensive academic 
centre for multi-disciplinary robotics research in the UK. It is a 
collaborative partnership between the University of the West of England 
(UWE Bristol) and the University of Bristol, and home to a vibrant 
community of over 250 academics, researchers and industry practitioners. 
Together, they are world leaders in current thinking on service 
robotics, intelligent autonomous systems and bio-engineering. The 
state-of-the-art facilities covers an area of over 3,500 sq. metres 
(over 37,000 sq. feet) and BRL is an internationally recognised Centre 
of Excellence in Robotics. The primary mission of BRL is to understand 
the science, engineering and social role of robotics and embedded 
intelligence. In particular, the key challenges surrounding adaptive 
robotics, namely: dealing with people and their unpredictability, 
unstructured and uncertain environments, and equipping robots for 
flexible roles. BRL is a unique collaboration that harnesses the 
collective strengths of its partners to spearhead Britain's efforts to 
be a world leader in modern advanced robotics.

This Innovate UK funded Connected Autonomous Vehicles (CAV) project is 
motivated by the opportunity to gain significant socioeconomic benefit 
in the Public Service Vehicle sector by automation of a bus service. The 
prime objective of the project, therefore, is to evaluate a commercially 
operational extended pilot service involving buses that will be either 
partially or fully autonomously (with supervision) over a 10-mile route, 
taking passengers across the Forth Bridge near Edinburgh.

Bristol Robotics Laboratory researchers will make two main, safety 
related, contributions to the project. First, we will build on expertise 
developed in collaboration with researchers at the University of Bristol 
during previous Connected Autonomous Vehicle (CAV) projects, to develop 
a simulation of the route using state-of-the-art vehicle simulator 
software and hardware. Using this simulation, we can design scenarios 
that stretch the vehicle's sensor and/or control systems and, where it 
is important to do so, test human participants' reactions to selected 
scenarios. Clearly these situations can be much more easily varied in a 
known way so as to achieve more critical settings than those which can 
safely be tested in the real world. Second, we will carry out risk 
assessments that build towards safety cases for real-world experiments 
to be conducted using the bus, with critical findings from simulation 
guiding the nature and detail of the test environments and the 
experiments themselves. Thus, we will verify and validate the safety of 
the bus control system, as well as helping to evaluate its acceptability 
overall.

Although there will be significant interaction with those at BRL and 
others working on the CAV-Forth project, this position is focused 
predominantly on the first of the contributions outlined above, i.e., on 
developing and using the simulation platform to investigate and discover 
the, so called, 'corner cases' (the most safety-critical situations) 
that need to be tested in the real-world, and to carry out 
simulator-based tests with participants. Thus, we will guide the focus 
for, and maximise the benefits from, the expensive and risky real-world 
testing to be carried out prior to implementing the 10-mile pilot 
driving route. To achieve this, you will utilise the results of recent 
research, carried out in Bristol, on simulation-based verification and 
validation techniques for autonomous vehicles. You will focus, in 
collaboration with the CAV-Forth partners, on a variety of autonomy 
functions and use case scenarios.

This is a full time, fixed term contract for 24 months.

The interviews are planned for Friday 28th June 2019.

On 22/01/2019 09:56, Tony Pipe wrote:
> 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