Project Title: design of an intelligent power charging station for the Jumanji rover

The Foundation is looking for a proactive and dynamic young candidate with good organizational and relational
skills and an inclination for teamwork, strongly motivated to work on innovative projects featuring strong
technological components.

We can offer an important training opportunity to experiment with using robotics as autonomous crop-field
monitoring systems, which is a cost-effective solution for acquiring different images (e.g., RGB and infrared).
Furthermore, the onboard autonomous intelligence helps optimize the robotic sensing activity by deciding the
navigation paths based on external recommendations. However, a generic and cost-effective robotic solution
autonomously navigating a rugged outdoor environment is still an open issue. Given these challenges, the OpenIoT
research group proposes to develop a ROS-based rover, based on existing open-source projects, to navigate and
acquire images using a camera mounted on a 4 DoF robotic arm.

General Objective

Autonomous robots as mobile field sensing systems may represent a cost-effective solution to acquire different
time-series data in agricultural use-cases, enhancing current Internet of Things (IoT) deployments. However,
several issues need to be solved, including the ability of the robot to autonomously navigate outdoors in rugged
settings and take advantage of IoT sensors to optimize the navigation paths. In addition, one intriguing challenge is
the capacity of the robot to return to a charging station when the energy levels are below those required for a
given task. Given these challenges, the OpenIoT research group opted for a ROS-based, open-source rover to be
applied in the agricultural sector as a research and development platform (codename: Jumanji). Therefore, the
goal is to develop a prototype charging station for the open-source rover that provides smart capabilities using IoT
sensors and basic computer vision.

Activities to be performed:
1. State of the art analysis of autonomous location for robots using ROS
2. State of the art DIY charging stations for mobile Robots with embedded sensors.
3. Integration/adaptation and open source libraries for wheeled vehicle navigation.
4. Building and evaluating prototypes for the charging station.
5. Evaluation and testing in real robots.
Expected skills:
1. Knowledge of basic concepts of robotics and computer vision in ROS
2. Knowledge of embedded HW/SW platforms (e.g., Arduino, STM32, RPI)
3. Knowledge of electronics, in particular batteries and chargers.
4. Experience with distributed version control systems (git).
5. Experience in Linux environment (shell scripting, package installation).
6. Experience in programming for embedded platforms (Python, C, or C++).
7. Experience building DIY sensor and actuator prototypes.
8. Motivation in the development of research activities.

We offer:
Curricular internship (no allowance);
3-6 months, depending on the candidate's needs and preparation;
Canteen;
Support for the search for accommodation at the affiliated structures.

All interested parties are requested to fill in the online form, clicking on "Apply online", and attach the required
documents in Pdfs format:

Curriculum Vitae;
Cover letter.

Applications will be reviewed as they arrive. Preferred period: at the earliest possible.
For any information, contact Massimo Vecchio (mvecchio@fbk.eu).

Business Unit	Centro Digital Industry
Locations	Science and Technology Hub - Trento