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Postdoc Researcher: Robotic manipulation of textiles in healthcare environments (HorizonEurope project SoftEnable)

Date of call

19/12/2022

Deadline

31/01/2023

Responsible

Carme Torras Genís

Type

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Description

The Institut de Robòtica i Informàtica Industrial (IRI), CSIC-UPC, is seeking a Postdoc researcher to work under the framework of the Horizon Europe project SoftEnable.
The postdoc will be supervised by Prof. Carme Torras and Dr. Júlia Borràs Sol, within the Perception and Manipulation Group at IRI


ABOUT IRI:
IRI is a Joint University Research Institute participated by the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC) that conducts research in human-centered robotics and automatic control. The institute is a key player in the Spanish robotics and automatic control scenes, and a valued participant in a large number of international collaborations including ten ongoing European projects and an ERC Advanced Grant.

ABOUT SoftEnable:
The European Project SoftEnable (Towards Soft Fixture-Based Manipulation Primitives Enabling Safe Robotic Manipulation in Hazardous Healthcare and Food Handling Applications) is an HorizonEurope project that started in October 2022.

SoftEnable proposes a new framework for manipulation actions involving deformable delicate objects based on the notion of soft fixture-enabled manipulation primitives. While fixtures by means of robotic grasps or specifically designed workpiece fixtures are routinely applied in industrial robotics applications involving rigid objects such as metal parts, there is a need to generalize these robotic methods to materials and situations that require the robust manipulation of soft or fragile items. SoftEnable will extend existing robotic grasping and manipulation techniques based on a novel soft fixture-based framework that generalized the notion of caging grasps together with the co-development of a soft fixture-optimized robotic manipulator and tooling for this purpose. Besides the fresh food handling use case, SoftEnable will focus on the healthcare sector where the project will demonstrate how soft fixtures can be utilized by a robotic system assisting health care workers by reducing stress and risk exposure during the handling, preparation, dressing, undressing and safe disposal of personal protective equipment.

ABOUT THE POSTDOC POSITION
The participation of IRI in the SoftEnable project is structured around two main aspects: i) the theoretical development of robust grasping primitives that use the environment and smart designed gripper geometries to improve grasping success rate, and ii) the application of such grasping primitives in a prototype for the robotic assistance to healthcare personnel in dressing/undressing personal protective equipment (PPE) in infectious contexts. The postdoc will be developing tasks for both aspects of the project.

ABOUT THE CONTRACT
She/he will be hired through a "CSIC FC3 contract" with a salary of 39.709 € gross per year, and her/his incorporation will take place in 2023. It will be an indefinite-term full-time contract linked to the duration of the scientific-technical research plan.

Requirements

Knowledge: The candidate should be a doctor with a solid mathematical and computer science background.
Experience: The candidate should have experience in carrying out research in applied mathematics for engineering problems, like robotics, computer graphics, computer vision or related areas.
Languages: Fluent in English.
Other: Female candidates are strongly encouraged to apply

Contacts

Please, send your documentation before 31/01/2023 to:

Email: jobs (at) iri.upc.edu
Address: C/ Llorens i Artigas 4-6, 2a planta. 08028 Barcelona, Spain.
Fax: 93 401 57 50
Note: Please, remember to reference the offer (ID-111) and include the following documentation: Cover letter, CV