Elaboration of a common robot/human action space
This post-doc aims at establishing by artificial intelligence methods (e.g. signal processing on graphs), the mapping of an industrial task performed by a human operator, and acquired by visual sensors, in order to be interpretable and exploitable by a robot. It is part of a project aiming at designing a demonstrator in which a robot will learn to reproduce by observation a task performed by a human. The platform has been deployed at CEA Tech and is currently operated by an engineer.
The objective of this post-doc is mainly to study and develop a set of methods to build a mapping between the actions performed by a human operator and perceived through visual sensors and the actions performed by the robot. These methods and the work of the related theses will then be implemented in the demonstrator in order to test them experimentally.
Due to the central position of the subject of this post-doc, under the triple supervision of the PACCE and IPI teams of LS2N and CEA, you will have to collaborate closely with the two PhD students already involved in the project. You will have to conceptualize and formalize the methods and representations on the one hand by synthesizing the existing literature on the subject and on the other hand by establishing a common framework encompassing the two thesis works.
Apprenticeship Learning Platform deployment for industrial applications
This project aims at developing a demonstrator that integrates state-of-the-art technologies and improve it on a use-case representative of the industrial world.
The demonstrator will consist in a robotic / cobotic arm coupled to an acquisition sensor (RGBD type). This device will be positioned in a workspace made of a rack / shelf containing objects / pieces of various shapes and qualities (materials, densities, colors ...) in front of which will be placed a typical conveyor prototype of industrial installations. The type of tasks expected to be carried out by the demonstrator will be "pick and place" type tasks where an object will have to be identified in shelf and then placed on the conveyor.
This type of demonstrator will be closer to the real industrial conditions of use than the "toy" examples used in the academic field.
This demonstrator will focus first on the short-term effectiveness based on state of the art technologies for both hardware and software, for a use case representative of the industrial world.
At first, it will thus be less focused on the evolution of the algorithms used than on the adaptation of the parameters, the injection of knowledge a priori dependent on the context making it possible to reduce the high-dimensional input space, etc.
Design and implementation of a bio-inspired sense, application to offshore teleoperation and to operator assistance
In recent years, the Bio-inspired Robotics Group of Robotics team IRCCyN has developed an artificial bio-inspired electric fish sense. To emulate the electrical sense, resistive probes were used for piloting the IRCCyN submarine autonomous robot.
For its part, within the Interactive Robotics Laboratory (LRI), the CEA LIST has been pursuing for several years a research activity in the field of force feedback telerobotics. The operator manipulates a slave robot located in hostile environments via a master arm located in a safe area and a computer system.
The candidate’s work will take place in a CEA- IRCCyN project running in parallel over a first project whose purpose is to demonstrate the concept of electro- haptic loop on a Cartesian arm carrying an electric probe with a fixed and known geometry. The postdoc will be in charge of implementing the loop on a "marinized" manipulator arm with a complex geometry. To do this, with the assistance of CEA and IRCCyN , he/she will support the preparation of this arm and adaptation of electrical sensor (emitter electrodes , receiver , electronic) architecture considered , as well as the adaptation of the monitoring / control of the haptic interface at the base of the electro-haptic loop. In addition to the technological challenges of this adaptation, the candidate must also consider different strategies to exploit the electric field on a multi-body system of variable geometry.
Experimental validation and proof of concept of this new offshore teleoperation system will be carried out on scenarios, to be defined, representative of the final application.
Design and implementation of force feedback by electrical sense for remote operation with submarines or aerial robots
Since few years, the Bio-inspired Robotics group of the IRCCyN Robotics team is developing a bio-inspired perception mode found on some freshwater tropical fish: the electrical sense. This active sense is based on the distortions measures, due to environment, of an electric field produced by the fish. Based on this principle Irccyn developed in the context of a European project called Angels, the first autonomous underwater robot capable of moving by means of the electrical sense . In the future, CEA TECH and Irccyn want to extend this first result in multiple directions, including the remote operation of submarines manipulators and aerial robots domains. The force feedback should be emulated by the use of the electrical sense. Integrated in the Bio-inspired robotics team of IRCCYN , post -doctoral fellow will contribute to the development of the electric sense and its use for underwater and aerial teleoperation . He will participate in the design and development of new sensors inspired by electric fish and their use for underwater telerobotics. The results of its work will underpin the industrial demonstrator system (teleoperation offshore) to be developed under the project CEA TECH / IRCCYN Bio-inspired robotics.
Global offshore wind turbines monitoring using low cost devices and simplified deployment methods
This project follows previous work focused on on-shore wind turbine instrumentation with inertial sensors networks whose dataflows allows the detection of vibration modes specific to the wind turbine components, in particular the mast and the real-time monitoring of these signals.
The objectives of this project are manyfolds: to bring this work to offshore wind turbines; search for signatures in wider frequency bands; study the behavior of offshore platforms and their anchorages.
One of the challenges is to find the signatures of rotating elements (blades) without direct instrumentation. Instrumentation of these elements is indeed more expensive and more impacting on the structure.
In addition, the sensor technology will be suitable for monitoring the fatigue life cycle of moving wire structures (dynamic electrical connection cable and anchoring) in the case of an off-shore wind turbine. The ultimate goal is to propose a global method for offshore wind turbine health monitoring.
Sizing and control optimisation of a hydrogen production system coupled with an offshore wind farm
Coupling MRE (Marine Renewable Energy) and hydrogen sectors reveal an important potential long-term assets. The MHyWind project suggests to estimate the energetic and economic potential of a hydrogen production system integrated into a substation of an offshore wind farm. The hydrogen produced and stored locally will be distributed by boat for harbour uses, as a replacement of fossil fuels. For that purpose, it will be organized a simulation which will integrate all the energy chain towards the harbour uses of hydrogen. It will allow to estimate various configurations and sizing according to the local uses, valuation leverages, control modes and behavior of the system. The criteria will be the producible (kg of H2 producted and used) and complet costs (CAPEX and OPEX). The objective of the postdoctoral student will be to develop the simulation tool on this applicative being fully integrated with the teams of concerned laboratories.
Production of green hydrogen and ammonia from offshore energy
This subject is dedicated to the high potential of offshore wind power in the high seas, where it seems extremely complicated and expensive to install an electric transmission to a continental grid. In addition, the IMO, a United Nation agency that is responsible for environmental impacts of ships, adopted ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from marine shipping. The IMO plan regulates carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emissions from ships and requires shipping companies to halve their GHG emissions by 2050 (compared to 2008 levels).
Different ways are being explored in order to identify the best low-carbon fuel that will be able to power new marine propulsion systems without GHC emissions (and others polluants like Sox, Nox…).
Hydrogen combined with a fuel cell is a good option for small application (fishing boat…). However, issues associated with hydrogen storage and distribution (low energy density) are currently a barrier for its implementation for large and massive marine application which drivess 80–90% global trade, moving over 10 billion tonnes of containers, solid and liquid bulk cargo across the world’s oceans annually.
Hence, other indirect storage media are currently being considered. Of these, ammonia is a carbon free carrier which offers high energy density. First studies and demonstration projects show that it could be used as a fuel coupled with a new generation of high-temperature fuel cells (SOFC) or internal combustion engines.
This project focuses on the green ammonia production on a high seas platform including an offshore wind farm that use renewable electricity to first generate hydrogen from water (via electrolysis) and nitrogen from air and then combine both in a Haber-Bosch process to synthesize ammonia. The objective is to develop modeling tools (Modelica / Dymola environment) in order to build, simulate and optimize "wind to ammonia" systems and energy management solutions to minimize the production cost of ammonia.