Recruiting
HAVATAR 2023: Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship in AI for HRI on Tele-autonomous Robots
The Computer and Vision Lab of the Institute for Systems and Robotics @ Tecnico Lisboa is opening one application for a 12 month post-doctoral research fellowship in AI for HRI on Tele-autonomous Robots.
The ideal candidate is a recent PhD graduate on Electrical Engineering or Computer Science (date of graduation should be after February 2020), who is willing to spend one year in the top national robotics research institute, located right in the center of Lisbon, the vibrant capital of Portugal, working on developing and deploying social robots in real environments interacting with humans, particularly in Hospital settings. We seek someone with background on one or more of the following topics: artificial intelligence, robotics, computer vision, machine learning, human-robot interaction.
We offer excellent research conditions (state-of-the art robots and equipments), a warm team environment with the best staff and students from the Lisbon University, and net monthly salary of 1684€, according to the national science and technology foundation regulations. Note that the cost of living in Lisbon is about 80% of that in Brussels (numbeo.com). The work will be supervised by Prof. Alexandre Bernardino.
The job involves:
(i) To research and develop methods for improving navigation, social presence, and interfaces of telepresence robots.
(ii) To co-supervise students in the scope of the project.
(iii) To write scientific publications of the developed work.
(iv) To help the management of the project (organize meetings, prepare deliverables and dissemination materials).
The fellowship is proposed in the context of the HAVATAR Project (Healthcare Added Value Applications for TeleAutonomous Robots).
The HAVATAR project will develop new software skills for telepresence robots that will increase their level of autonomy. We will improve the teleoperation comfort of the user commanding the robot, the social presence and the navigation skills of the commanded robot. We consider two scenarios. TELEPORT aims at allowing a user, living in isolation or unable to travel, to embody remote robots at working site and seamlessly navigate and interact with people in the target environment. TELECARE, will allow caretakers to embody a robot in the home of the patient, in order to deliver remote care solutions, as well as program the robot to autonomously monitor the patient’s daily routines and acquire the relevant health variables.
Interested candidates should express their interest by sending the following documents as soon as possible to alex(AT)isr.tecnico.ulisboa.pt [Subject line: Havatar2023]:
(1) Cover letter (max 1 page)
(2) CV
(3) Certificate of academic degree with grades.
(4) Name and contact of two referees.
Summary of the HAVATAR project
With the steady ageing of the world population, more people are confined to live in isolation at their homes. Also, health and environmental concerns are demanding people to work remotely more often to limit the carbon footprint in travelling, and reduce the risk of spread of viral and infectious diseases. In both cases, contact with familiars, friends or co-workers rely on telecommunication solutions with low interaction possibilities and unsatisfactory social bonding. Such solutions lack social presence and spatial accessibility, as well as diminished body language and implicit communication cues. The HAVATAR project proposes to increase the level of autonomy and social presence of current systems by using recent robotics and artificial intelligence technologies. Further to the interaction, telepresence robots can play active roles in providing help and health assistance to quarantined people. Specific behaviors, actuators and sensors can play important roles in handling epidemic crises.
Recent technological advances in robotics are spawning a new generation of teleoperation robots that promise increased levels of presence, spatial awareness and social interaction abilities at accessible prices. Some robots can already be purchased off-the-shelf at the cost of a personal computer in well known online shops. In the near future they will be available in many people's homes and public spaces. They contain sophisticated sensors for navigation, spoken dialogue tools, orienting behaviours, internet connectivity and online services. They allow teleoperation to navigate in the environment and embodied telepresence in remote social conversations. Some of these robots have been already deployed in public events to allow people at their homes to attend the event and contact with peers. Currently, hundreds of these robots are being deployed in hospitals, office buildings and airports to minimize physical contact among people in areas affected by the new coronavirus.
Although hardware solutions for robot telepresence are reaching maturity, the corresponding software tools still present serious limitations for a satisfactory experience. The simultaneous control of robot navigation and social interaction components is cognitively very demanding. Many users, especially the elderly, have trouble coping with the high number of commands, which prevents a smooth and effective interaction. Instead, the user should be able to provide high level commands to the robot (e.g. meet John in the lobby) and the robot should do most of the work by himself. This demands for a new paradigm of teleoperation where the user can offload autonomy components to run locally in the robot, which we denote “tele-autonomy”. Other problems, like latency in the communication networks and limitations in the field-of-view and bandwidth of the vision sensors, make teleoperation slow and frustrating. To cope with communication latency the robot must be able to anticipate the actions and motions of the users in the remote space. Finally, better sensor processing algorithms and visualization interfaces are required to present to the user a good representation of the state of the remote world.
The HAVATAR project will develop new software skills for telepresence robots that will increase their level of autonomy, the teleoperation comfort of the user, and its social presence at the remote site. Two academic partners with long-standing international experience in robotics projects (ISR-Lisboa and ISR-Coimbra) will collaborate for the development of the tele-autonomy skills and their integration in the healthcare added-value applications, that will be tested in realistic scenarios provided by Hospital da Luz Learning Health (HL.LH). One application will be hosted at the HL.LH Simulation Center, where practitioner students, health professionals or other actors will remotely access a telepresence robot to dynamically observe simulated clinical practices and interact with the local peers (e.g. simulated surgical acts, or simulated Intensive Care Unit in pandemia scenario). In this scenario we will also study the issue of having multiple remote users sharing the same local space and interacting with each other via their proxy robots. The other application will deploy one telepresence robot in the home of a patient and let the familiars or health professionals interact and program the robot to acquire added value variables and patient reported data. In this application we will study how extended periods of autonomy can be useful for the healthcare professionals. Although focused on health applications, the technology developed in this project will have impact in many other uses of telepresence robots that will improve the lives of the homebound: in education at distance, accessibility to cultural spaces and events, attendance to professional meetings and scientific conferences, among others.
About the host institution ISR/IST
IST is the largest and most reputed school of engineering, science and technology in Portugal, with long tradition in teaching, and excellence in research, innovation and training activities. Since its creation in 1911, IST’s mission is to contribute for the development of the science, economy and society by promoting a higher degree of education in the areas of Science, Engineering and Technology at the undergraduate and graduate levels and by delivering highly qualified professionals in the public and private sector, strengthening the National and European R&D effort.
The ISR-Lisboa (Institute for Systems and Robotics) is the research institute of IST involved in multidisciplinary research activities in the areas of Mobile Autonomous Robotics (Land, Underwater and Space autonomous vehicles), Computer and Robot Vision, Automation and Control, Dynamic Systems, Signal and Image Processing, Communications, Biomedical Engineering, Evolutionary Systems, Artificial Intelligence, Manufacturing Systems and Aeronautics. ISR-Lisboa is home to nearly 150 researchers (including approximately 50 faculty members and postdoctoral researchers). The ISR-Lisboa team involved in this project has has a solid expertise in the areas of vision based control, active vision, computer vision and vision-based navigation, and hosts several humanoid robotic platforms (including an iCub). It has been involved in major EU projects like CAVIAR, MIRROR, CONTACT, ROBOTCUB, FIRST-MM, HANDLE, ROBOSOM, POETICON++ and URUS.
About Lisbon
Lisbon, with a population of about one million inhabitants (2 million in the metropolitan area), is the capital, the chief port and the largest city of Portugal. It stands on the westernmost point of land of the European continent, where the Tagus river flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Its climate is probably the mildest of all European capitals. Lisbon is one of the most ancient cities in the western Europe.
Probably inhabited since the Neolithic period, it was settled by Phoenicians in 1200 BC, who named it Alis Ubbo (calm port). They prospered for more than 600 years until it was occupied by Greeks and Carthaginians, then by the Romans in 205 BC, by the Barbarians in the 5th century AC, by the Arabs in 715 AC, till it was finally conquered by D. Afonso Henriques during the Crusades in 1147, and declared capital of the Portuguese kingdom in 1252. The city name evolved with each new occupant until its present form Lisboa. In the 15th and 16th centuries, the Age of the Discoveries, Lisbon became the center of the world and the entrance of Europe to the Oceans.
Being already an important city when conquered in 1147, it continued growing its importance. In 1260 the King Afonso III transferred his court there from Coimbra. The University of Lisbon was founded in 1292. It is perhaps this long history of finding new lands and cultures that explain why Lisboans are, by nature and tradition, open to the new and very welcoming to visitors.