[robotics-worldwide] 2010 Underwater Robotics/AI Planning & Execution Summer Internship, Monterey Bay California

[Kanna Rajan]

[Apologies if you receive multiple copies of this announcement]

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI http:// 
www.mbari.org) is a private non-profit oceanographic research  
institute which has engaged in inter-disciplinary research in the  
ocean sciences and technology for over 20 years. The institute does  
advanced work in Robotics, Genetics, Micro-Biology and Ocean  
Exploration and Observing with 3 ocean going ships, 2 Remotely  
Operated Vehicles (ROV's) and 3 Autonomous Underwater Vehicles (AUV's)  
in addition to state-of-the-art science and technology facilities.

MBARI's 2010 Internship applications are now open with details at:

http://www.mbari.org/education/internship/10interns/10announce.htm

These internships are selective, paid and open to all nationalities.

MBARI's Autonomous Systems group is engaged in research efforts to use  
advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to enable Autonomous  
Underwater Vehicles (AUV) to be more adaptive and self aware of their  
resource and goal commitments. Our onboard deliberative system T-REX (http://www.mbari.org/autonomy/TREX/ 
) being used on  AUV platform (http://www.mbari.org/auv/), is based on  
the sense-deliberate-act paradigm synthesizing new mission plans in  
response to environmental conditions. T-REX uses a state-of-the-art  
temporal constraint-based planner (EUROPA) developed originally at  
NASA and flown on a number of space missions including ground-based  
control of the ongoing Mars Exploration Rovers (MER).

1 internship position for summer 2010 (June 14 to August 20) is  
available for a graduate student.

Potential projects include:

1. Work on integrating synthetic ocean model outputs with trajectory  
planning for AUVs.

2. Work on oversubscription resource modeling for T-REX. This will  
require understanding of the internals of T-REX modeling and  
constraint satisfaction for plan execution.

3. An intuitive science interface for mixed-initiative control of  
AUVs. The resulting code will need to visualize dynamic constraint  
networks underlying onboard and offboard plans for controlling an AUV  
asset at sea.


Highly motivated students with substantial

+ Java programming skills
+ Excellent  C++ programming skills
+ AI Planning and a background in Constraint Satisfaction
+ Self motivated individual with very good communication skills
+ Open to going to sea on day cruises

are encouraged to apply.

Previous visiting interns have come from MIT (4), Colorado State,  
University of Michigan, Strathclyde University (UK), University of   
Birmingham (UK), LAAS/Toulouse (France), Univ. of California Santa  
Cruz, Univ. of Southern California, Univ. Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)  
(2) and Heriot-Watt University (UK).

Women and Minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.