[Graphics-net] Fw: Attentive Vision for Robots

[Ioannis Pratikakis]

FYI
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bob Fisher" <rbf at inf.ed.ac.uk>
To: <ipratika at iit.demokritos.gr>
Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2008 12:47 PM
Subject: Job: Attentive Vision for Robots


> Please contact mertsching at upb.de if you are interested in this job.
> 
> ================================================================
> Job: Attentive Vision for Robots
> 
> 
>  University of Paderborn
>  GET Lab
>  One Doctoral/ Post-Doctoral Research Post - Computer Graphics and
>                                                    Computer Vision
> 
> 
> Applications are invited for one doctoral/ post-doctoral researcher to
> work at GET Lab on a DFG funded project entitled "Attentive Vision for
> Robotic Assistance Machines (AVRAM) --- early clustering approach towards
> artificial visual attention for increasing performance of active vision
> systems".
> 
> Project goal: Despite its short history modeling visual attention has
> found many useful applications in different areas such as visual search,
> perceptual grouping, object and gesture recognition, object tracking,
> image and video compression and scene rendering in 3D graphics. We
> intend to broaden the scope to areas such as driver assistance systems,
> rescue robotics, aid systems for the elderly or handicapped, and other
> areas where machine vision could play a helping role for people. In this
> project, we aim to demonstrate attention behaviors on real-time active
> vision systems integrated in mobile robots working in natural 3D
> environments with live sensor data so that this work may become a
> milestone towards the long-term target of biologically inspired human
> assistance machines. For this purpose, we are extending the modalities
> of our existing attention model by adding the necessary feature channels
> of motion and depth, and reformulating the rest of the attention model
> in accordance with the new changes. Moreover we plan to introduce a
> spatial memory infrastructure into the model to store locations and
> features of the learned objects and to allow the vision system to
> operate autonomously for long time spans. In order to quantitatively
> measure the performance of this project in particular and evaluate the
> output of attention models in general, we intend to build a sharable
> resource for performance assessment and benchmarking of visual
> attention models. The tool for attention evaluation will be developed
> in close interaction with leading experts in the field and made
> available for the research community in this area.
> 
> The main activities of the researcher at Paderborn will be to
> investigate how to evaluate different attention models. This research
> will involve generation of 3D testing scenarios, further development of
> our robot simulator, visualization of multimodal attention clues,
> development of metrics for the evaluation of attention models and the
> development of a web based system for the evaluation of different
> attention models.
> 
> Applicants for the post must have completed a master program in an
> appropriate area such as computer science, electrical engineering, or
> physics and should have experience with computer graphics, computer
> vision as well as the C, C++, and Matlab/Simulink programming languages.
> As the project is about 3D data simulation, we will be looking for
> applicants with experience with OpenSceneGraph, OpenGL and ODE.
> 
> The position is initially for two years with the possibility of
> extension. It is paid according to the German Public Service Scale
> (TV-L 13). The closing date for applications is November 28, 2008.
> 
> The University of Paderborn is an equal opportunity employer:
> Handicapped individuals are strongly encouraged to apply, and so are
> women in areas in which they are underrepresented.
> 
> Further particulars are available from, and electronic applications are
> sent to: Prof. Dr.-Ing. B?rbel Mertsching,  GET Lab, Fakult?t EIM-E,
> University of Paderborn, Pohlweg 47-49, 33098 Paderborn, Germany, 
> Tel +49 5251 605293, Fax +49 5251 603238, mertsching at upb.de, 
> http://getwww.upb.de. A meaningful application should include a cover
> letter, a CV, a brief summary of research interests, a statement of
> interest in the position offered, and contact information for two
> references.
> 
> 
> -- 
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
>