Research Associate

Role Description

The University of York is looking for a Research Associate to develop new cognitive architectures for Robots, working with a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from the Universities of York and Southampton as well as industrial collaborators. This work is supported by a 12 month Research Grant awarded by the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The novelty of this project lies in the application of robot envisioned digital mental models to support them in creativity and imagination of morphological informed solutions to problems encountered in manufacturing (and other sectors outside manufacturing) as well as to support the application of previously learnt skills to new similar tasks.

Role

You will be working with Dr John Oyekan and Dr Erich Graf to develop a novel cognitive architecture based on the psychological concept of envisioning to bootstrap digital mental models for artificial creativity on manufacturing robots. The digital mental models will be used by the robots to support them in creativity and imagination of morphologically informed solutions to problems encountered in manufacturing. The optimal solutions will then be applied by the robots on real world industrial use cases defined by the industrial partners.

Skills, Experience & Qualifications

• BEng/MEng, 1st or 2.1 degree in Engineering, Physics or Mathematics.
• PhD in Computer Science, Engineering, Physics or Mathematics or the equivalent experience (including near completion of a PhD).
• Experience of robotics or a related discipline such as control engineering or mechatronics.
• Good working knowledge of relevant computer programming languages and simulation packages, for example Matlab, C/C++, Python or ROS.
• Working knowledge of physics based modelling, optimisation and/or state estimation methods.
• Working knowledge of developing algorithms to interface with sensors and processing the datastreams

Interview date: Interviews are expected to be in the week of the 12th of May, 2025.

For informal enquiries: Dr John Oyekan at john.oyekan@york.ac.uk

The University strives to be diverse and inclusive – a place where we can ALL be ourselves.

We particularly encourage applications from people who identify as Black, Asian or from a Minority Ethnic background, who are underrepresented at the University.

We offer family friendly, flexible working arrangements, with forums and inclusive facilities to support our staff. #EqualityatYork

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