PhD in End-to-End AI for Mobile Autonomous Robotics

Apply for this PhD position to research the next generation of mobile autonomous robotics. You will work on cutting-edge AI technologies for robotics, including end-to-end transformer models that enable robots to autonomously navigate and interact with open-world environments.

Project:

This PhD position concentrates on designing innovative AI architectures and training techniques for end-to-end robotics. Specifically, you will investigate Vision Language Models (VLMs), Multi-modal Large Language Models (MLLMs), and Vision Language Action models (VLAs) for applications involving spatial scene understanding and spatial reasoning. The challenge is achieving a level of spatial understanding that allows robots to handle new environments and tasks with minimal human-provided demonstrations or descriptions, while maintaining a certain level of reliable and safe operation. Another challenge particular to robotics is that these end-to-end models must be efficient enough to operate in real time. Certain tasks, e.g., collision prevention in manipulation, require guaranteed timely responses, while others, e.g., reasoning, are allowed to take longer. These ‘fast’ and ‘slow’ tasks need to be supported simultaneously by the end-to-end architecture and should be compatible with the limited compute and energy resources of embedded systems.

Responsibilities:

Your daily activities will include reviewing the latest developments in the field, identifying current limitations, hypothesising possible causes and solutions, designing improved network architectures and training methods, setting up validation methods to test hypotheses, and reporting on findings via presentations and publications. It is expected that you perform these tasks as a professional with great independence, and that you possess the ability to engage in in-depth discussions, make informed choices, and be open about the limitations of your research. Additionally, given the rapid pace of AI progress, we find it very important that PhDs not only work individually but are also eager to work in teams with students, peers, and supervisors.