A two-year position as research engineer is available at INRIA chile.
pdf version at
http://bipop.inrialpes.fr/people/acary/Research/PositionINRIAChile-final.pdf

Key facts

• Position type: open research engineer position
• Location: INRIA Chile, Santiago de Chile, Chile
• Keywords: Numerical simulation, robotic systems, open--source software
• Duration: 24 months
• Salary: between 1 300 000 and 1 600 000 Chilean pesos (gross salary)
(competitive salary for a young engineer in Chile)
• Application deadline: immediately and continue until the position is
filled.
Candidates are encouraged to apply now.
• Expected start date: as soon as possible.

Working at INRIA Chile :

Inria Chile http://www.inria.cl is a recently-established foundation set up
by Inria in Chile. It seeks to be, within its areas of expertise, a
strategic innovation partner for the Chilean industry. We rely on recent
discoveries made either by our university partners in Chile or by our
researchers in France. The Centre of Excellence Inria Chile works closely
with research teams from nine Chilean universities on seven projects
following three strategic lines: Internet and Telecommunication Networks,
Hybrid Energy and Natural Resources Management. We have developed a
transfer platform, backed up by Inria's experience in France, on the one
hand as a research centre, and on the other hand as a support for
innovation development within enterprises, particularly SMEs. We want to
become a natural interlocutor for innovation issues within the fields of
information technology and communication in Chile. Our approach is to
listen to the needs of enterprises by communicating directly with them,
then carrying out development and transfer actions.

Position Description

At INRIA Chile, the engineer will work on the project ROPE (Robot Physics
Engine) that concerns the development of a robot physics engine based on
Siconos http://siconos.gforge.inria.fr within the general framework Gazebo
http://gazebosim.org developed by the opensource robotics foundation
(OSRF). The numerical simulation is of utmost importance for the design and
the validation of multi--body mechanical systems with unilateral contact
and friction. In this context, the recruited expert engineer will be in
charge of the design, the implementation and the validation of a new
robotic physics engine based on Siconos. Siconos is a simulation software
with a strong experience in simulating mechanical systems with impacts and
friction. The main target of the project is the integration into the gazebo
software that is now a standard de facto for the modeling and the
simulation of robotic systems. The benefits of the project is to develop a
well--recognized open--source software for the robotic community, and
especially for world-wide robotic challenges like the DARPA challenge

The expected work will follow the following steps:
• Analyzing the interfaces with the existing robot physics engines in gazebo
• Architectural design and detailed implementation of the Siconos-based
ROPE engine in Gazebo
• Integration and validation on real-case examples
• Optimization of numerical methods for simulation of mechanical systems


 Skills and educational background

• Master or Ph.D thesis in Mechanics or Applied Mathematics with strong
skills in:
– Theoretical and classical Mechanics.
– Numerical modeling.
– Numerical simulation and scientific computing.
• Experience in software development:
– high confidence with C++ programming.
– open-source project experience, including source code and project
management tools (Git, GitHub, Travis-CI, cmake, ...)

How to apply ?
A curriculum vitæ and a cover letter must be sent to Vincent Acary
vincent.acary@inria.cl. If you have questions about the scientific contents
of the position, we encourage you to contact vincent.acary@inria.cl before
applying.