Connectionists: [jobs] PhD Fellowship in Quadrupedal Robot Learning in Cyprus / Deadline: 31 March

[Vassilis Vassiliades]

We are accepting applications for 3-year PhD fellowships at the CYENS
Centre of Excellence <https://www.cyens.org.cy/en-gb/>, located in sunny
Nicosia, Cyprus. The positions are full-time for 3 years starting from an
MSc or equivalent.

This post concerns the thematic area of *Quadrupedal Robot Learning*.

*Short description:*
Quadruped (4-legged) robots are an emerging technology that has recently
become commercially available. These robots have unique potential
advantages over other types of robots, such as increased agility on
unstructured terrain compared to wheeled or tracked systems, or increased
payload carriage compared to flying systems. Deploying such robots in the
real-world, however, presents several challenges related to perception,
locomotion, navigation, as well as human safety. A common approach to
address such challenges is to train robots in simulation, however,
effective transfer from simulation-to-reality (sim2real) is still a subject
of ongoing research. This project aims to investigate novel approaches for
bridging the sim2real gap by developing (potentially photorealistic)
simulation scenarios and machine learning algorithms for training quadruped
robots towards their deployment in real-world settings. The successful
candidate will have the opportunity to investigate approaches such as deep
reinforcement learning for robust locomotion from vision, damage recovery,
lifelong localization and mapping, as well as aspects of human-robot
interaction and shared autonomy. The developed approaches will be evaluated
both in simulated environments and on physical quadruped robots.

The candidate will be registered at the *University of Cyprus*, but based
at *CYENS *at the "Learning Agents and Robots" research group (
lear.cyens.org.cy). The candidate will have the opportunity to spend
15%-25% of their PhD time at *University College London* (collaborating
partner).

Questions about the position can be directed to Vassilis Vassiliades,
CYENS, email: v.vassiliades at cyens.org.cy

*For more information and how to apply please visit:*
https://www.cyens.org.cy/en-gb/vacancies/job-listings/research-associates/phd-fellowships-cyens-doctoral-training-progra-1/

*Deadline*: 31 March 2023
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