EPSRC funded PhD Open

Application Deadline:

University of Leicester — EPSRC DLA funded opportunity

Project title: Embodied Intelligence for Trustworthy Robotic Autonomy in Unconstructed Environments

Background: This PhD project addresses the challenge of achieving trustworthy robotic autonomy in dynamic, unstructured environments—such as hazardous manufacturing facilities, orbital and planetary space robotic operations, or deep-sea installations. While today’s robots can perform impressive tasks, they often lack the safety, reliability, and transparency required to earn human trust. This research focuses on Embodied Intelligence, emphasising accurate perception and spatial understanding to guide robots’ decision-making and adaptability amid real-world uncertainties.

State-of-the-art methods integrate Vision-Language Models (VLMs) and multi-agent architectures, encoding sensor and control inputs into shared representations that inform actions. However, these approaches have rarely been tested in highly unstructured scenarios, often struggling with the Sim2Real gap and limited generalisation beyond their initial training conditions. To address these gaps, this project will combine Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs), reinforcement learning, and synthetic scenario generation. Industrial datasets and generative AI techniques will support the creation of diverse, photorealistic training conditions that better reflect complex operational environments.

The application link and project details and further project details are available online.

Application deadline: 31 January 2025 Start date: 22 September 2025