Research Fellow (EPICS)

Research Fellow – EPICS

School of Engineering – Center for Computational, Cognitive & Connected Imaging (C31)

Ref. No. 010730: Research Fellow – EPICS

JOB ADVERTISEMENT

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for a fixed term position at 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) as Research Fellow or Senior Postdoctoral researcher (L2) within the Center for Computational, Cognitive and Connected Imaging (C3I) in the College of Science and Engineering at the University of Galway.

This position is funded by the Disruptive Technologies Innovation Fund and are available from December 2024. Successful candidates will lead a team of 4-5 researchers working on algorithm development for the EPICS (Event-camera based Platform for In Cabin Sensing) project. The project goal is to deliver a privacy aware, low cost, low power, intelligent in cabin neuromorphic sensing platform capable to perform the analytics required for after-market automotive specific applications, such as driver safety enhancement, intelligent insurance, intelligent fleet monitoring, and automotive surveillance.

This appointment is at 1.0 full-time equivalent (FTE) and is initially a contract research position for 2 years (subject to extension).

The C3I Center is led by the #1 Irish Researcher in the field of Computer Science/Engineering, Prof. Peter Corcoran. Research at C3I spans a wide range of topics in Computer Vision and Artificial Intelligence. Applications of this research can be found in consumer devices, automotive systems and, most recently smart-toys. Details on recent research are available in the projects and publications sections of the C3I website. The group works with industry to apply state-of-art Edge-AI solutions, develop improved training methodologies and prove the validity and evaluate the performance of emerging data-synthesis techniques. 

The EPICS project is a collaboration between FotoNation and CameraMatics, two Irish SME’s, with RPO support, will bring to the market an alternative platform sensing solution based on a new imaging sensor, called neuro-morphic vision sensor combined with a State of Art Neural Processing Unit (NPU). This bio-inspired sensor does not provide a conventional image frame or video stream, but instead senses pixel-level changes/events. This camera can detect small local changes and has a much faster response time than conventional video cameras. In addition, pixel-level events are very suited to processing by Neural Network algorithms and yield more compact networks than conventional neural computer vision solutions.

The University of Galway/C3I contributions to EPICS are primarily focused on the research elements for building neuromorphic data infrastructure and associated development of novel algorithms and methods for analysing the neuromorphic event-stream from these sensors. There is also a work package that will focus on the evaluation of Data Privacy, Security and Ethical Aspects of neuromorphic visions systems. This work package can also include elements of AI Explainability.

Salary: This posts is offered from P8 on the postdoctoral researcher payscale to P1 on the Research Fellow payscale. €55,282- €65,237 per annum, and pro rata for shorter and/or part-time contracts. The offer will be dependent on the candidates experience and suitability for the post. Recently graduated PhD candidates enter at point 1 of the scale. Experienced candidates may be considered for appointment at P3-P5 on this scale depending on their research experience.

Closing date for receipt of applications is 17:00 (Irish Time) on 15/11/2024. Interviews are planned for mid/end November. (Applications may be considered after this closing date if the positions are not filled – status will be updated on the C3I website.)

JOB DESCRIPTION

The successful candidates will lead the EPICS project and oversee the University of Galway contributions to the project. Among the core research topics:

Review and evaluate SoA across a range of imaging and sensing technologies:

visible, NIR, thermal IR and neuromorphic (event-based) imaging modalities

focus on techniques for analysis of facial micro-expression analysis, eye-saccades, involuntary eye-movements, facial tremors, hand-to-face movements, breathing and blood-flow

novel neuromorphic biometrics, and upper-body/head movement patterns

Algorithm Development & Testing:

Investigate, design and train new features that are currently missing: drowsiness, attention, seat belt detection, facial recognition, micro-sleeps, facial micro-expressions, and pulse detection;

continuously improve those using initially updated synthetic neuromorphic data and later with real data collected from industry partners

adapt & port visible/NIR DMS & OMS neural networks for the selected NPU chip (to enable various sensor choice for end products envisaged by CameraMatics

Neuromorphic, sound, 2D and 3D data acquisitions in support of the R&D process

Run photo capture sessions and acquire neuromorphic data

2D (NIR and visible) video with sound acquisitions; target 250 data subjects

3D-models and data acquisitions

Synthetic Data methods and refinements:

Explore the potential of various data synthesis methods to increase the amount of data available for training, to include augmentation techniques for available data

Build controllable data generative methods for the multimodal data sources used in the project (NIR, thermal, event-cameras).

Field Testing and Proof-of-Concepts supporting the selected NPU (Neural Processing Unit) selected for the project platform by FotoNation.

Research activities will be determined within the project team and the Research Fellow/Senior Postdoc will work with the PI to implemented these. Regula meetings will be required with the industry partners both weekly synch meetings and more formal quarterly reviews. In addition there will be annual reporting to Enterprise Ireland where the lead researcher will work with the PI to deliver outputs and formal reports to Enterprise Ireland and the project board.

Successful candidate will also be expected to mentor team members and guide and direct team members to deliver outputs and engage with members of the industry partners teams as needed. When applying candidates should clearly indicate previous team leadership and mentorship experience.

Duties: The successful candidates will guide, advise and lead the EPICS team members in the following activities.

conduct literature and database searches and interpret and present the findings of the literature searches to the project consortium as appropriate.

conduct experiments and evaluate new neural models/algorithms as per needs of the industry partners.

write up results from their research activity (e.g. as periodic project reports) for review by PI, including preparing technical reports, conclusions and recommendations.

draft and review research papers to assist in dissemination of research findings.

They will also:

Become familiar with the consortium agreement governing research between the consortium members and ensure that relevant policies and procedures are observed by team members

Assist the PI in project management and formal reporting to the funding agency

Provide input into the research project’s dissemination, in whatever form (report, papers, chapters, book) as directed by the PI/project leader.

Mentor and assist team members, as appropriate and as directed by the PI/project leader, the research graduate students in the C3I group assigned to PRIVI-SENSE.

May act as co-supervisor or be a member of a supervisory panel and mentor foreign students within the group.

Contribute to teaching /tutoring/mentoring in the School of Engineering under the supervision of a fulltime academic member of the School

Develop their own career reputation and career development

Any other duties assigned commensurate to this level of post

ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS

Essential Requirements:

Primary degree in Electronic Engineering, Computer Science or Mathematics.

Postdoctoral degree and at least 4 years postdoctoral research experience with relevant project experience; alternatively at least 10 years of research experience post primary degree with at least 4 of the 10 years being industry research experience

Strong programming background and extensive experience working with deep learning frameworks such as Pytorch or TensorFlow.

Significant experience of working in a team environment with mentoring experience of more junior researchers or interns and strong evidence of research team leadership and/or management responsibilities.

A strong publication record of first-author research publications in recognized peer-reviewed conferences or journals (minimum 5 publications in past 3 years); alternatively a track record of filed patents (minimum 2 in past 5 years).

Good fluency in technical English, both spoken and written.

Desirable Requirements:

Project or work experience with advanced neural networking techniques or architectures (autoencoders, GANs, Transformers, Diffusion models, Model fine-tuning, Ablation Studies, Spiking NNs, etc).

Data Analytics experience, in particular with building, annotating or cleaning of research datasets for computer vision, advanced signal analysis or equivalent.

Project/research experience in multi-modal imaging or equivalent (NIR, thermal, LWIR, event-camera, 60 GHz radar or 3D lidar sensing/imaging).

Relevant experience with embedded systems or devices such as Raspberry PI, Jetson Nano or equivalent (ideally computer vision or signal processing based project work on such systems).

Experience with generative data techniques or advanced data augmentation techniques.

CONTINUING PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Researchers at University of Galway are encouraged to avail of a range of training and development opportunities designed to support their personal career development plans. University of Galway provides continuing professional development supports for all researchers seeking to build their own career pathways either within or beyond academia.  Researchers are encouraged to engage with our Researcher Development Centre (RDC) upon commencing employment - see HERE for further information. Exceptional candidates may be offered the opportunity to register for PhD studies based on the research work undertaken as part of PRIVI-SENSE.

Further Information/Links