JOB DESCRIPTION

Pigeons are highly social flyers, exhibiting remarkable coordination when flying in flocks. They rely on visual cues to track and respond to their flockmates’ movements in real-time, adjusting their flight paths with split-second precision. Pigeons adjust their movements based on the positions of a limited number of neighboring birds in order to maintain cohesion and ensure collective navigation.
Swarm flight is of high importance to autonomous drones as well. For many applications, from search-and-rescue to fire monitoring, a swarm of drones can cover larger areas quicker than any single drone could. For swarming to be successful, the perception of neighboring drones is essential. This is the case both for the swarm flight towards an area of interest and for spreading out upon arrival.
We are looking for a PhD candidate to study intra-swarm relative localization in order to realize autonomous swarms of fixed-wing drones. To this end, the candidate will develop multiple, complementary methods for relative localization. Since fixed-wing drones are fast and highly dynamic, the main focus will lie on the use of neuromorphic vision for relative localization. Moreover, given the constrained onboard energy resources, neuromorphic visual processing is envisaged, i.e., with spiking neural networks.
The PhD candidate will be employed at TU Delft, in the Netherlands, and embedded in the Micro Air Vehicle lab (MAVLab) at the Faculty of Aerospace Engineering. The MAVLab ( https://mavlab.tudelft.nl/ ) is at the forefront of developments for autonomous, bio-inspired drones, ranging from the DelFly flapping wing hardware design to bio-inspired autonomous flight algorithms. It has a range of unique facilities, ranging from a drone design and construction lab to indoor and outdoor flight areas.
At TU Delft, the PhD candidate will work together in a team to establish an autonomous swarm of fixed-wing drones. The primary supervisors will be Guido de Croon (TU Delft), and Giacomo Spigler (University of Tilburg). The PhD position is part of a larger project led by University of Tilburg, “Steadfast”, focusing on human-swarm interaction, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

REQUIREMENTS

• An excellent degree in robotics, artificial intelligence, computer science, or a related subject at Masters level or equivalent.
• Good programming skills in programming languages such as python and/or C++.
• Fluency in English.
• An independent scholar who wants to shape research in the field.
• An interest in interdisciplinary and collaborative research.

Please refer the Job description for details