CSIRO Postdoctoral Fellowship in Robotics
- Commonwealth Scientific & Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
- Location: Brisbane, Australia
- Job Number: 7160746 (Ref #: cj_93571)
- Posting Date: Jul 31, 2023
- Application Deadline: Open Until Filled
Job Description
Acknowledgement of Country
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Child Safety
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The Opportunity
- Do you have a PhD in Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Mathematics?
- Keen to work on a new approach to autonomous robot navigation?
- Join the CSIRO Data61 for this exciting 3-year postdoctoral role
CSIRO Early Research Career (CERC) Postdoctoral Fellowships provide opportunities to scientists and engineers who have completed their doctorate and have less than three years of relevant postdoctoral work experience. These fellowships aim to develop the next generation of future leaders of the innovation system.
Deploying robots in remote environments, such as the Moon, deep sea, underground mines, and caves, requires them to operate autonomously, perceive their surroundings, make decisions, plan their actions, and navigate extreme terrains with minimal human intervention. Traditional solutions to robot autonomy rely on model-based pipelines, which decompose the overall task into a collection of inter-connected algorithmic and optimisation blocks. This fellowship pursues a new approach to autonomous robot navigation by exploiting the complementary nature of traditional (model-based) and modern (data-driven) robot autonomy paradigms. The work will build upon and extend implicit neural networks, a promising emerging paradigm that incorporates domain information and algorithmic priors into deep learning models. Using this paradigm, the CERC Fellow will create novel unified models that retain the structure of traditional autonomy pipelines while codesigning and simultaneously tuning components together, rather than individually for each block.
The CERC Fellow will demonstrate the methods developed in this project on a fleet of robots in realistic testbeds, simulating the exploration of remote planetary environments. The methods will be integrated into Wildcat, a state-of-the-art solution for simultaneous localisation and mapping, developed at CSIRO.
Your duties will include:
- Carrying out innovative, impactful research of strategic importance to CSIRO that will, where possible, lead to novel and important scientific outcomes.
- Recognising and exploiting opportunities for innovation and the generation of new theoretical perspectives, and progressing opportunities for the further development or creation of new lines of research.
- Delivering publications in top-tier robotics and machine learning venues, including ICRA, IROS, RSS, CoRL, RAL, ICML, NeurIPS, and JMLR.
- Contributing to open-source libraries for building nonlinear optimisation layers in PyTorch, and integrating into commercial software developed at CSIRO.
- Utilising design thinking methodology to plan and prepare research proposals, and applying non-academic impact methodology to research projects.
Location: Pullenvale, Queensland
Salary: AU$92k - AU$101k plus up to 15.4% superannuation
Tenure: Specified term of 3 years
Reference: 93571
To be considered you will need:
- A doctorate (or will shortly satisfy the requirements of a PhD) in a relevant discipline area, such as Robotics, Machine Learning, Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, or Mathematics. Please note: To be eligible for this role you must have no more than 3 years (full-time equivalent) of postdoctoral research experience.
- Expertise in at least one of the following two areas: (a) machine learning theory/algorithms, including recent neural network architectures, or (b) applying deep learning to tasks such as robot navigation, robot perception, and computer vision.
- Experience implementing deep learning architectures in frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
- High competency in at least one programming language, such as Python or C++.
- Strong mathematical skills, particularly Mathematical Optimisation.
For full details about this role please view the Position Description
Eligibility
Applications for this position are open to Australian/New Zealand Citizens, Australian Permanent Residents or you must either hold, or be able to obtain, a valid working visa for the duration of the specified term. Appointment to this role is subject to provision of a national police check and may be subject to other security/medical/character requirements.
The successful candidate will be expected to commence employment by 31 January 2024.
Flexible Working Arrangements
We work flexibly at CSIRO, offering a range of options for how, when and where you work.
Diversity and Inclusion
We are working hard to recruit people representing the diversity across our society, and ensure that all our people feel supported to do their best work and feel empowered to let their ideas flourish.
About CSIRO
At CSIRO Australia's national science agency, we solve the greatest challenges through innovative science and technology. We put the safety and wellbeing of our people above all else and earn trust everywhere because we only deal in facts. We collaborate widely and generously and deliver solutions with real impact.
CSIRO is committed to values-based leadership to inspire performance and unlock the potential of our people.
CSIRO is committed to the safety and wellbeing of all children and young people involved in our activities and programs, whether we are undertaking research, engaging with the public or nurturing future scientists in person or online. Source – CSIRO Child Safe policy 2023
Join us and start creating tomorrow today!
How to Apply
Please apply on-line and provide a cover letter and CV that best demonstrate your motivation and ability to meet the requirements of this role.
Applications Close
31 August 2023, 11:00pm AEST
We’re working hard to build a safe and welcoming culture where people can bring their whole selves to work. Valuing and enabling difference empowers our people, unlocking their potential to innovate and shape the future for our customers, all Australians and the world. We do the extraordinary every day. We innovate for tomorrow and help improve today. We're the people that stay awake solving the world’s big questions. This is true of our science and of our people. Our mission is to create benefit for Australia through impactful science and innovation but we know that that's not possible without an inclusive and diverse culture. We're working hard to recruit diverse people and ensure all our people feel supported to do their best work and empowered to let their ideas flourish.