Faculty: Barış Akgün (baakgun@ku.edu.tr)
Description:
“Manipulation” is effortless for humans. For example, we do not need to think about how to grab objects and use basic tools. Yet we can only program very specific skills that are not robust to changes for robotic manipulators. Our physical features, perceptual capabilities, and mental faculties have evolved for millions of years to give us such sensorimotor skills. It is no wonder that robotic manipulation is in its infancy despite all the effort in the last 50 years.
However, there is hope. The development of safe and affordable robots, low-cost sensors, and most importantly the rapid advances in artificial intelligence, specifically deep reinforcement learning, shows promising potential to enable manipulators to develop sensorimotor skills for uncertain and dynamic environments.
The challenges are:
We are looking for post-doctoral researchers to develop innovative solutions to these challenges. Interested candidates must have experience in a combination of the following: