Offer Description
Key Information
The PhD fellowship aims to teach robots to understand forest well enough to navigate and move through them in real time, using machine learning on LiDAR point clouds and camera imagery for real-time understanding of the forest scene, and leveraging that understanding for localization and navigation. A robot builds a picture of its surroundings one lidar scan at a time. Each scan on its own says very little; together they describe the forest in detail. Traditional inference methods run on finalized, clean data: but a robot needs an answer based only on partial observations.
The PhD aims to address this gap, taking machine learning models for segmenting and interpreting forest point clouds and rebuild them as real-time, incremental estimation systems. The work supports navigation, self-localization, and traversability work.
About the position
The position is a three year position, based at Ås, 30 km south of Oslo. The candidate will be enrolled at NMBU and works with the department's field robots.
To be a current applicant, you cannot have previously held a research fellowship position at NIBIO, and you cannot have a previous doctorate or have previously held a research fellowship position with funding from the Norwegian Research Council.
If you do not have skills in Norwegian, Swedish or Danish at level A2 upon employment, NIBIO will offer free Norwegian language training with the goal of achieving Norwegian skills at at least this level.
Main responsibilities
- Develop machine learning architectures that interpret 3D point cloud data incrementally, for real-time use, building an understanding of the surrounding forest as new observations arrive.
- Investigate compact representations of forest structure, and how they support localisation, place recognition and scene understanding
- Adapt models to the properties of live sensor data: sparse, unevenly sampled, motion-distorted and partially observed
- Implement and evaluate the resulting systems on embedded hardware and on NIBIO's robot platforms
Professional qualifications (required)
- Master's degree, or equivalent five-year degree, in data science, machine learning, robotics, or a related field. The degree must be completed before the start date.
- Fulfils NMBU's requirements for admission to the PhD programme
- Experience implementing and modifying deep learning architectures. Working knowledge of Python and a modern deep learning framework.
- Strong programming skills in Python, with experience using modern deep learning frameworks such as PyTorch or TensorFlow.
- A strong command of oral and written English
- Willingness and physical ability to take part in outdoor field work in Norwegian forests.
Will be evaluated positively
- Deep learning on 3D and sensor data: point clouds, voxel or sparse representations, transformers, segmentation, registration. Experience designing or adapting architectures rather than only applying existing ones.
- Real-time and resource-constrained inference: quantisation, pruning, distillation, CUDA, embedded accelerators. C++ or other systems programming.
- Robotics and state estimation: SLAM, sensor fusion, place recognition, ROS/ROS2. Experience with UAVs, ground robots, or agricultural and forestry machinery.
- Practical experience building or integrating physical sensing systems and running field experiments
- Knowledge of forestry, remote sensing or ecology
- Knowledge of Norwegian or another Scandinavian language
Personal qualifications
- Ability to work independently on open-ended research problems, from idea through implementation to field validation
- Strong analytical ability and capacity to learn unfamiliar methods and tools quickly
- Commitment and enthusiasm for working as part of an ambitious research team
- Good communication and interpersonal skills, and the ability to collaborate with colleagues and external partners from different academic backgrounds
Salary and benefits
- Opportunity to work on an important social mission with focus on sustainability and future-oriented projects
- Challenging, exciting and varied tasks in interdisciplinary teams
- A flexible everyday life with the opportunity to influence one's own work tasks
- A skilled professional environment with good colleagues
- A generous personnel policy with welfare schemes that focus on employees' different stages of life
The position is remunerated according to the Norwegian State Salary Scale as PhD research fellow, position 1017, salary NOK [contact details available in the full listing] per year, commensurate with qualifications and experience.
Membership in the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund, which includes a good occupational pension scheme, occupational injury and group life insurance, and low-interest home loans.
How to apply for the position
Please send your application with CV electronically via the link on this page.
Take originals of diplomas and letters of recommendation with you if invited to an interview, and submit a copy of them as an attachment along with the electronic application/CV.
We conduct background checks on final candidates as part of our recruitment process.
Other information
We would like to point out that information about applicants may be subject to public disclosure, in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act (Offentlighetsloven), Section 25. An applicant can request to be exempted from inclusion on a public list of applicants. If the request for confidentiality is denied, the applicant will be notified thereof.
In accordance with the Norwegian Civil Service equal opportunities policy, qualified candidates are encouraged to apply - regardless of age, gender, functional disabilities, gaps in CV or national or ethnic background. As a government agency, we have the opportunity to provide positive special treatment for applicants who have a disability, gaps in their CV or immigrant background. Positive special treatment means, among other things, that you will more easily come to the interview.
About NIBIO and the Department
NIBIO's activities lie within agriculture, food, climate and the environment. The Institute conducts research and management support, and provides knowledge for use in national preparedness, governmental and district management, industry, and the society at large. NIBIO has approximately 750 employees present in all parts of the country. Its main office is located at Ås in Akershus. NIBIO is owned by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.
The Forest Operations and Digitalization departement is part of the Division of Forest and Forest Resources. The department carries out applied research on forest and natural-resource based value chains and aims is to contribute to increased profitability for forest products and services, within a sustainable framework.
Questions about the position
Carolin Fischer, Head of departement, [contact details available in the full listing]
Steffan Lloyd, Researcher, [contact details available in the full listing]
