Post-doctoral fellowship in "Design by optimization in swarm robotics"

We are recruiting a post-doctoral fellow with a background in design by optimization / optimization algorithms / automatic design of algorithms / operations research. The post-doctoral fellow 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 post-doctoral fellow will focus mostly on:

• the study of different approaches to the design by optimization of a robot swarm;
• the analysis of the interactions between the specification language, the available hardware/software modules, and the resulting optimization problem;
• the study of the impact of different constraints on the optimization process;
• the analysis of different objective functions and the study of their impact on the automatic design process.

Profile, skills, and experience

• Doctoral degree in computer science / mathematics / physics / artificial intelligence / engineering
• Background in optimization algorithms, metaheuristics, local search, mixed-variable optimization
• Experience in design by optimization and/or automatic design/tuning of algorithms
• Proficiency in English; excellent oral communication and writing skills

Recruitment restrictions

• Candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc) in Belgium for more than 24 months in the last 36 months immediately prior to the appointment
• Candidates must have obtained their doctoral degree no more than 8 years before the appointment

Conditions

Fellowship of 24 months, possibly renewable for a further 12 month period.

Estimated net monthly allowance: 2400 EUR.

The Université libre de Bruxelles is an equal opportunity employer.

Benefits:

• inspiring, dynamic, and intellectually challenging research environment
• international and interdisciplinary research team
• resources for short visits abroad, participation in conferences, and open-access journal publication
• social security coverage including medical insurance, parental leave, and child benefits. Unemployment benefits and retirement pension are included for EU citizens and citizens of several non-EU countries that have a bilateral social security agreement with Belgium
• insurance against accidents in the workplace
• tax exemption
• low-cost private hospitalization insurance
• on-site services at the ULB including: medical centre, university hospital, sports centre, subsidized restaurants, cultural centre, crèche, and activities for children

How to apply

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

• a motivation letter (maximum 1 page)
• CV and list of publications
• a writing sample — e.g, a chapter of the doctoral dissertation, a representative article (between 10 and 30 pages)
• names of two academic/professional references — after a pre-selection, we might ask the applicant to provide a letter from these references

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