Job advert: Human-Robot Interaction at University of Hertfordshire

RESEARCH ASSISTANT IN HUMAN-ROBOT INTERACTION

University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, United Kingdom http://perseus.herts.ac.uk/

School of Computer Science Adaptive Systems Research Group http://adapsys.feis.herts.ac.uk/

Salary £15,699 per annum (Ref: L6153)

Applications from postgraduate candidates are invited for a full-time research assistantship human-robot interaction. The work to be carried out as part of this position is expected to form the basis of the candidate’s PhD research.

The post offers the opportunity to work within the Adaptive Systems Research Group, a proactive and dynamic research team with an excellent international research profile. The successful candidate will work as part of the European project Cogniron (Cognitive Robot Companion, www.cogniron.org), aiming at developing and evaluating social and cognitive mechanisms, models and functions for a new generation of personal robots that can assist people ‘in the home’, i.e. are able to carry out useful tasks. The work will also be associated to another European robotics project: Robot-Cub (ROBotic Open-architecture Technology for Cognition, Understanding and Behaviour, www.robotcub.org). Robot-Cub aims at creating an open physical platform for embodied cognitive systems research.

This particular post will involve studies into social learning, and emergent development of (non-verbal) communication via interaction games in human-robot interaction. Of particular interest are grounding of communication in imitative interaction games, exploiting effects of contingency and synchronization. Relevant scenarios involve an autonomous robot that can manipulate simple objects. The successful candidate will be part of an existing team of researchers working in the projects Cogniron and Robot-Cub. The work involves the development of appropriate (biologically-inspired) robot control architectures, and their thorough analysis and evaluation in robotics experiments. The work involves programming a suitable mobile robot as part of a team, as well as the design and evaluation of studies with human subjects.

Applicants are expected to have excellent qualifications and experience in biologically-inspired robotics research, Artificial Life or related disciplines. A specialist postgraduate degree (or other strong evidence of research potential), and excellent programming skills are required, as well as very good skills in presenting research and writing scientific documents. The successful candidate should also be interested in working in an interdisciplinary and European research team.

The full-time post is based on a fixed-term contract of up to three years. Start date: 1 April 2005.

More information on the post, including job and person specifications are available: http://recruitment.herts.ac.uk/recruit/

Closing Date 3 February 2005

Applications must be made formally via the University of Hertfordshire Personnel Department. For online applications see: http://recruitment.herts.ac.uk/recruit/

Informal enquiries can be made to the research coordinator Prof. K. Dautenhahn (K.Dautenhahn AT herts.ac.uk).