Robotics engineer – for service robotics experiments in real life scenarios

Type de contrat : CDD Contexte et atouts du poste The position is funded by the PEPR O2R, a national French program to advance research in robotics which reunites several French laboratories in robotics, AI, and Social and Human Sciences. In this context, the HUCEBOT team in INRIA is leading the project AS3, with the challenge to carry out longitudinal (i.e., several months) experiments of service robotics in real-life scenarios. THe team already conducted preliminary studies with a mobile robot, Shelfy, serving coffee in the cafeteria or handing free goodies in corridors. We look for a robotics engineer to assist the team in continuing the experiments. We will continue serving breakfast, delivering mail or items in offices, interact with visitors, etc. Later, the experiments will take place in a hospital environment. The objective of these experiments is to investigate the behavior of the humans around the robots, and also improve the robot's autonomous skills in interaction, control, navigation, manipulation. The team is international - English and French speaking. French is desirable for this position, because the engineer will have to interact with passersby and asks questions. The laboratory is located in the Science and Technology Campus of the University of Lorraine, next to the Botanical Gardens, at 20 minutes by public transportation or bike from the Nancy train station and City Center. Nancy is a University town, with a high quality of life and a vibrant student and expat community. Mission confiée The engineer will be responsible for the robotics platforms used in the project (Shelfy, TiagoPro, but potentially also humanoid G1), making sure the contributions from all the partners are integrated at the software level on the robot. He will also supervise all the experiments, making sure the platform behaves safely in the real environment.  To this end, an important objective will be to improve and maintain the teleoperation interface station that enables the engineer to supervise the robot in Wizard of Oz mode. The engineer will have to develop/improve/maintain the software running on the robot, mostly improving on the existing software that is used and developed by the team for navigation, control, and manipulation. Running the experiments in the lab will require potentially deploying environmental sensors and handling network issues (changes in the network, delays, etc.).  An important task will be to realize all the field experiments. To do so, the candidate should like robot learning, HRI, and collaborative work. All the development will be in ROS/ROS2. Principales activités • Leading and executing the robot experiments in the field • Write code to perform experiments with robots • Write software documentation • Conduct experiments in the real environment, with real robots • Participate to national (PEPR) and European projects events (meetings, hackathons) when appropriate Compétences • Experience with machine learning, vision, or real robots is ideal. • HRI experience. • Familiarity with robotic platforms (e.g., ROS/ROS2, Gazebo), sensors, cameras, and hardware. • Proficiency in programming languages such as C/C++ and/or Python is required. • Ability to work independently and as part of a team. • Good communication and writing skills in English. Inria, l'institut national de recherche dans les sciences et technologies du numérique, est en appui de l’État pour les stratégies nationales de recherche et d’innovation du numérique en tant qu'Agence de programmes. Inria mène plus de 300 projets de recherche et d’innovation avec ses 3500 scientifiques, ingénieurs et personnels d’appui, en partenariat avec les universités et l’écosystème numérique (entreprises, entrepreneurs, acteurs publics). Ensemble, nous explorons des domaines clés comme l'intelligence artificielle, la cybersécurité, l’informatique quantique, le Cloud, la transformation numérique de la santé, les jumeaux numériques ou encore les technologies numériques pour la défense. Nous construisons des solutions concrètes telles que des logiciels, des startups technologiques, des partenariats avec les entreprises du tissu national et des formations de pointe. Notre objectif : l’impact scientifique, technologique et industriel au service de la souveraineté numérique de la France.