Hired by: the Rainbow team at IRISA/Inria Rennes, France OR the SIRSLab at the University of Siena, Italy
Advised by: Claudio Pacchierotti (Rainbow team) and Gianni Bianchini (Univ. Siena)
Context
The work will be carried out between the Rainbow group (https://team.inria.fr/rainbow/) of IRISA-CNRS in Rennes (France) and the Department of Information Engineering and Mathematics (DIISM, https://www.diism.unisi.it/en) of the University of Siena (Italy). The student can be physically located either in Rennes or in Siena.
CNRS is the largest fundamental science agency in Europe, ranked the second most important global research institution in terms of scientific publications (source: Scimago Institutions Rankings) and the eight most important in terms of innovation (source: Thomson Reuters). The University of Siena is one of the oldest and first publicly funded universities in Italy (in 1240). It is ranked as the best middle-sized university in Italy (source: CENSIS).
Rennes in a lively city in the north-west part of France, capital of the Britanny region. Located 90 minutes from Paris and less than one hour from the sea, Rennes was named as the leading French city in Europe for “quality of life” in 2020 and has the highest satisfaction rate among its inhabitants (source: European Commission). Siena is a picturesque city in Tuscany, Italy, known for its medieval architecture and historic center, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city is famous for its annual horse race, the Palio di Siena, and its stunning Gothic cathedral, the Siena Cathedral, which features works by some of the most important Italian artists of the Renaissance period.
Envisaged Activities
Control of remote interaction systems with force feedback is of paramount importance both in robotic teleoperation and virtual/augmented reality. Such systems are prone to stability loss due to communication delays and specific features of the teleoperated environment. Time-domain control approaches that leverage passivity theory have proven a flexible and successful tool in designing stabilizing control strategies that do not rely on the knowledge of a model of the environment. In such methods, however, the stability guarantee comes in general at the cost of a reduction of the level of transparency, i.e., of the degree of fidelity in force rendering at both the local and the remote side. Recent research has shown that some degrees of freedom in the design process can be exploited to improve the transparency of a given task under the stability constraint.
The objective of this research work is to design and evaluate novel time-domain stabilizing control strategies for multidimensional multi-user teleoperation systems aimed at the maximization of the level of transparency by means of online optimization.
The work will address the following points, tuned according on the expertise and interests of the student:
• Theoretical development and simulation of transparency-preserving control strategies based on convex optimization.
• Software development for real-time implementation of the designed methods on real-world teleoperation systems.
• Experimental evaluation and comparison of the performance of the developed control strategies. Design of case studies.
Skills/Requirements
- B.Sc./M1 degree in computer science, robotics, engineering, applied mathematics (or related fields);
- Experience in C/C++ , ROS is a plus;
- Experience with robotic control and human-robot interaction is a plus;
- Excellent scientific track of record, scientific curiosity, large autonomy, and ability to work independently.
Conditions
The internship is for 5-7 months.
The position will be paid according to the French salary regulations for interns.
How to apply
Please apply through this form: https://forms.gle/5gNEpgePNdYPsh5x5
The position will remain open until a satisfactory candidate is found.
