PhD studentship in "Optimization algorithms for the automatic design of robot swarms"

We are recruiting a PhD student with a background in optimization / operations research. The PhD student will perform their research in the framework of the DEMIURGE project, a research project funded by the European Commission via an ERC Consolidator Grant.

The scope of the DEMIURGE project is the automatic design of robot swarms. Our goal is to advance the state of the art in swarm robotics by developing the DEMIURGE: an intelligent system that is able to design and realize robot swarms in a totally integrated and automatic way. The DEMIURGE is a novel concept. Starting from requirements expressed in an appropriate specification language, the DEMIURGE will design all aspects of a robot swarm: hardware and control software. It will do so by automatically casting the design problem into an optimization problem and tackling it in a computation-intensive way. The DEMIURGE will not create the design of a robot swarm from scratch: it will operate on a number of preexisting software and hardware modules. It will obtain candidate designs by properly assembling these modules and fine-tuning their parameters.

The DEMIURGE project is hosted by IRIDIA, the artificial intelligence laboratory of the Université libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. IRIDIA is a leading laboratory that is world-renowned for its contributions to swarm intelligence, collective robotics, and automatic design/fine-tuning of algorithms.

The research to be performed by the PhD student will focus mostly on:

Profile, skills, and experience

Conditions

Studentship of 4 years.

Estimated net monthly allowance: 1880 EUR.

The Université libre de Bruxelles is an equal opportunity employer.

Benefits:

How to apply

Applicants should send an email to info@demiurge.be including:

Deadline

August 15, 2017. Candidates are encouraged to apply as soon as possible. The position will remain open until filled by a suitable candidate

Further information

See http://demiurge.be and/or contact us at info@demiurge.be