Master Thesis - Adaptive behavior for safe mobile robots

Safe Intelligence - this forms the core brand of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS. Connected cognitive systems drive innovation in many sectors, including mobility, healthcare, and automation in industry. Disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing play a key role here. Fraunhofer IKS is conducting research to ensure that these applications are reliable and verifiably safe. We consider resilience and intelligence to be part of the same process.

What you will do

As part of our research into building safe and performant autonomous systems, a mobile robotic platform is developed to model various tasks in manufacturing and logistics. Due to its intended use in highly variable environments, the system must be able to react autonomously to the encountered scenario. Dynamic safety management [1] can be used to derive the adaptations that are necessary when the context changes, however a method for enacting these adaptations in the behavior of the robot is required. A promising approach is using a skill-based description of robot capabilities [2]. The goal of the master thesis is to research the suitability of this approach for dynamic safety management.

[1] M. Trapp und G. Weiss, „Towards Dynamic Safety Management for Autonomous Systems“, _Safety-Critical Systems Club_, 2019.
[2] D. Bozhinoski, C. H. Corbato, M. G. Oviedo, G. van der Hoorn, N. H. Garcia, H. Deshpande, J. Tjerngren, and A. Wasowski, “MROS: Runtime Adaptation For Robot Control Architectures,” Nov. 2021.

What you bring to the table

• Knowledge and interest in software engineering for robots
• Good programming skills in Python and/or C++
• Experience working with ROS2 and robot simulation environments, e.g. Webots, Gazebo, NVIDIA Isaac Sim
• Experience in safety engineering is a plus
• Structured style of working, independent problem solving ability.

This Masterthesis is especially suitable for Computer Science students.

What you can expect

• Participation in a dynamic team with innovative task areas
• Practical approach to your studies
• Flexible work hours with the opportunity to work from home
• Potential for publication of your results as a conference paper.

We value and promote the diversity of our employees' skills and therefore welcome all applications - regardless of age, gender, nationality, ethnic and social origin, religion, ideology, disability, sexual orientation and identity. Severely disabled persons are given preference in the event of equal suitability. Remuneration according to the general works agreement for employing assistant staff.

With its focus on developing key technologies that are vital for the future and enabling the commercial utilization of this work by business and industry, Fraunhofer plays a central role in the innovation process. As a pioneer and catalyst for groundbreaking developments and scientific excellence, Fraunhofer helps shape society now and in the future. 

Interested? Apply online now. We look forward to getting to know you!

Additional questions will be answered gladly by
M.Sc. Andreas Kreutz, Telefon: +49 89 547088-369

If you got further questions, please contact our colleagues from HR via eMail: recruiting@iks.fraunhofer.de

Fraunhofer Institute for Cognitive Systems IKS

Requisition Number: 76933                Application Deadline: