Honda Research Institute USA
AI

Postdoctoral Research Scientist: Robotics and Control Systems

Honda Research Institute USA · San Jose, CA, US

Actively hiring Posted 5 months ago

Responsibilities

  • Research, ideate, and implement novel and robust model- and learning-based robot behaviors and interaction control algorithms, enabling contact-rich manipulation in various real-world application domains including dexterous object manipulation.
  • Research, ideate, and implement robot reasoning algorithms for understanding and predicting failure, recoverying from failure, and learning successful task strategies through adaptive intelligence that can enable generalizability to new scenarios.
  • Develop and implement simulation environments for data collection.
  • Validate dexterous robot behavior algorithms through comprehensive data analysis and successful demonstrations on hardware.
  • Deliver results in accordance with the project timelines.
  • Assist with compiling written and oral reports for executives within the company and performing demos.
  • Contribute to the portfolio of patents, academic publications, and prototypes to demonstrate research value.
  • Collaborate with our teams of scientists and engineers in Honda's regional and global R&D offices, as well as with our partners in academia and industry.
  • Assist with supervising interns.

Basic qualifications

  • Ph.D. in mechanical engineering, robotics, electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field.
  • Expert knowledge on fundamentals of robotics. e.g. robot kinematics and dynamics, control systems, force control, haptics.
  • Expert Knowledge on learning-based methods such as reinforcement learning, generative models and inference models.
  • Extensive hands-on experience on development and successful implementation of planning, control and recovery algorithms for contact-rich manipulation in real-world.
  • Proven experience with one or more physics simulators such as MuJoCo, Isaac Sim, PyBullet, Drake, or Gazebo.
  • Familiarity with large models including VLMs, LLMs, and multi-modal foundation models.
  • Strong track record of publishing in top robotics venues (e.g T-RO, RA-L, T-M, ICRA, IROS, RSS, CoRL, …)
  • Solid programming skills in C++ or Python and strong familiarity with ROS.
  • Self-motivated to advance the project and deliver on-time.
  • Strong written and oral communication skills including development and delivery of presentations, papers, and technical documents.

Preferred qualifications

  • Strong familiarity with both model and learning-based approaches for manipulation.
  • Extensive experience with algorithm and software development (and debugging) for complex robotic systems involving design, implementation and integration of multiple planners, controllers, and perception systems.
  • Research experience and expertise in planning and control for dexterous manipulation with tactile robotic multi-fingered hands.

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