Robotics Engineer Position H/F within the framework of the Extender project

The Inria center at the University of Bordeaux is one of the nine Inria centers in France and has about twenty research teams.. The Inria centre is a major and recognized player in the field of digital sciences. It is at the heart of a rich R&D and innovation ecosystem: highly innovative SMEs, large industrial groups, competitiveness clusters, research and higher education players, laboratories of excellence, technological research institute...

The Auctus team (https://auctus-team.gitlabpages.inria.fr/) at Inria Bordeaux is recruiting a research engineer for two years within the framework of the Extender project.

The Extender project, led by a consortium of both academic, industrial and medical partners, aims at applying approaches developed with industry-oriented collaborative robotics in mind to assistive technology for people with disabilities. Indeed, collaborative robots are foreseen as an opportunity to help individuals with limited arm or hand mobility perform complex tasks, offering greater autonomy. This requires a user-centered approach to ensure the technology meets specific needs, is adaptable, and easy to use, driving adoption. This project is part of the France 2030 program, which promotes the transfer of technological building blocks from laboratories to innovative companies.

To be more specific, the envisioned core developments of the project aim at applying state-of-the-art expertise in robot control to create innovative solutions for disability assistance. By integrating and testing various control methods in real-world settings, the goal is to match user needs effectively, focusing on the EXPLORER arm from ORTHOPUS.

The research engineer recruited within the framework of this project will integrate the Auctus team at Inria (Talence, Campus de l'Université de Bordeaux) to evaluate the potential of several recent scientific contributions of the team in the domain of robot control and analysis. They will collaborate both with engineers at ORTHOPUS to make the best use of the abilities of the EXPLORER arm as well as with the other scientific partners of the project to compare and potentially merge some of the tested control approaches.

The main missions of the recruited person will be to:

• survey the recent research works developed in the Auctus team in the domain of the control and analysis of robots operating in dynamics and collaborative context. Among these works, we may consider:
  • the PhD work of Antun Skuric on quantitative robot capabilities analysis through polytopes (https://inria.hal.science/tel-04396638) and its software implementation Pycapacity (https://github.com/auctus-team/pycapacity, https://joss.theoj.org/papers/10.21105/joss.05670);
  • the on-going software development at Auctus on Qontrol (https://gitlab.inria.fr/auctus-team/components/control/qontrol), a software aiming at easing the formulation of control problem as constrained optimization ones;
    - the PhD work of Nicolas Torres on the formulation of Model Predictive Problem in SE(3) for the online replanning of robot trajectories in dynamic context (https://inria.hal.science/tel-04410378v1);
  • the ongoing work on shared-control approaches to human-robot collaboration (https://auctus-team.gitlabpages.inria.fr/website/content/intern_alumni/projects/asap-hrc/).
• Evaluate, through exchanges with the different partners, the potential of these recent contributions to the tackled problem.
• Given the set of tasks and constraints retained in the project, propose a control architecture leveraging the existing solutions.
• Implement the proposed control solution on the existing and available robot at Auctus as well as on the prototype arm provided by Orthopus.
• Analyse the obtained performance, initially in laboratory conditions and, when possible, in more ecological conditions with users involved.
• Discuss/Propose potential improvements with the different partners.

The Auctus team is approximately composed of 15 people whose core expertise ranges from robotics to cognitive sciences including biomechanics and numerical constrained optimization. The recruited person will have the opportunity to benefit from exchanges with these people but will also be working closely with:

• Vincent Padois, PI of the Extender project for the Auctus team with a core scientific expertise in robot control, especially in the collaborative context;
• Margot Vulliez, research scientist in the Auctus team with a core scientific expertise in robot design and control as well as teleoperation;
• Lucas Joseph, research engineer at Inria strongly involved in the research projets of the Auctus team both in terms on the development of control software libraries and in terms of setting-up and running experimental developments.

Several collaboratives robots (Franka Panda, Kuka IIWA and more coming) as well several sensors (Optitrack, 2D laser sensor, 6 axis FT sensors, Gelsight tactile sensor,...) and experimental facilities will be accessible to the hired person.

The main activities of the hired person will be:

• Robotics control architecture developments
• Software Developments
• Technology watch
• Scientific and technical reporting and documentation
• Technical meetings with partners
• Experimental robotics activities

Technical skills and knowledge:

• Modelling and control of robotic systems
• Control theory and signal processing
• Linear algebra and numerical optimization
• Python and C++ programming
• ROS middleware and associated tools (Rviz, MoveIt!, etc.)
• Linux and RTOS
• Code versioning and continuous integration (git)

• Subsidized meals
• Partial reimbursement of public transport costs
• Possibility of teleworking and flexible organization of working hours
• Professional equipment available (videoconferencing, loan of computer equipment, etc.)
• Social, cultural and sports events and activities
• Access to vocational training
• Social security coverage

The gross monthly salary will be between 2692€ and 3085€, depending on your qualifications and professional experience (before social security contributions ans monthly witholding tax).