REHABIBOTICS: Using Humanoid Robots to Convey Rehabilitation Therapies to Disabled People

Industrial Doctorate co-joined developed at the Catalan Institute of Robotics for the Disabled – Ave Maria Foundation, Sitges-Spain, and the Intelligent Robotics and Computer Vision Group (IRCV) at the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), Tarragona-Spain.

3 years and restricted to those interested in obtaining a doctoral degree.
PhD Scholarship: gross salary of 22,000 Euros per annum.
Tentative starting date: October 2014.

Research:
The project aims to develop a system to automatically create rehabilitation therapies for patients with disabilities in the form of psychomotor activities –games, dance or workout routines– that incorporate the use of humanoid robots within the therapeutic loop by cloning human behaviour learned by imitation. It is a proven fact that the use of humanoid robots psychomotor therapy provides a new powerful tool to improve the effectiveness and flexibility of these therapies. However, the use of such robots for non-specialized personnel is still very limited and difficult. The objective of this research project is to implement a system that is able to generate the therapeutic routines from imitation of human actors and, also, objectively measure both the interaction between the robot and the patients, as well as the effectiveness of these techniques on the patients. This project will be developed in close collaboration with specialist therapists and patients at the Ave Maria Foundation in Sitges, Spain.

Company:
Catalan Institute of Robotics for the Disabled – Ave Maria Foundation (http://www.institutcatalarobotica.org and http://www.avemariafundacio.org). Its mission is to be a centre of excellence for cutting-edge robotics dedicated to supporting people with disabilities, based on a full knowledge of the state of the art in this field as well as throughout evaluation of materials with external collaboration with partners interested in research, teaching and knowledge dissemination, always in the highest and most competitive and efficient level.

University:
The research team at the URV (Rovira i Virgili University) is member of the Intelligent Robotics and Computer Vision (IRCV) research group (http://deim.urv.cat/~rivi/). The IRCV group is concerned with the development of innovative solutions in several areas of Robotics and Computer Vision through the application of advanced computing techniques.
(http://deim.urv.cat/~rivi/research2.html)

Profile:
* Good honours degree (or equivalent) in computer science,
engineering, mathematics, physics or another related area.
* Recent master degree (or equivalent) (preferably in computer
science, robotics, computer vision, machine learning
or applied mathematics).
* Solid programming and algorithmic skills; excellent abilities in
programming in C++ and Python; experience in libraries such as OpenCV,
OpenNI, Kinect Microsoft SDK, PCL, ROS, NumPy, SciPy, SciKit.
* Solid mathematics knowledge (especially linear algebra,
statistical pattern recognition, machine learning, robotics, etc.)
* Prior knowledge in the areas of robotics, computer vision, and/or machine
learning is a plus (ideally a Master thesis in a related field).
* Experience in humanoid robots like Aldebaran’s NAO.
* Creative and highly motivated.
* Good interpersonal and communication skills.
* Fluent in English, both written and spoken.
* Able to live and work in/near one of the nicest towns in Spain.
(The candidate will be required to distribute the weekly working hours between the IRCV lab in Tarragona and the Ave Maria Foundation in Sitges).
* Eager to learn and being happy creating!