About the Job:
Technology Innovation Institute (TII) is a publicly funded research institute located in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. It comprises a diverse community of leading scientists, engineers, mathematicians, and researchers from around the world, transforming challenges into groundbreaking research and technology prototypes that advance society.
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As a member of TII's Artificial Intelligence Research Center, specifically within the Extreme-Scale Language Model team, you will develop and implement innovative deep learning technologies applicable in areas such as Natural Language Processing, Perception, and Vision. The team has created the Falcon models and is committed to advancing applied research in large language models.
Key Responsibilities:
- Develop and integrate AI modules into robotic platforms, both in simulation (e.g., Gazebo, Isaac Sim) and real hardware (e.g., robotic arms, mobile robots).
- Set up and manage robot data collection pipelines, including teleoperation interfaces and sensor logging for vision, proprioception, and control signals.
- Work directly with hardware for sensor calibration, actuator tuning, and robot setup/troubleshooting, addressing software and physical issues.
- Collaborate with researchers to introduce LLM/VLM-based capabilities into robotic workflows (e.g., language-guided control, multimodal perception).
- Maintain and enhance ROS/ROS2-based software stacks, ensuring modular, testable, and reusable components.
- Deploy, test, and optimize AI models on embedded computing platforms (e.g., Jetson, Raspberry Pi).
- Build tools for simulation-based evaluation and benchmarking of robotic behaviors, and assist in translating results to physical systems.
Required Qualifications:
- Proven experience in robotics software development, especially with ROS/ROS2 and real hardware integration.
- Comfortable with robotic arms, mobile platforms, and sensors (e.g., cameras, depth sensors, IMUs).
- Hands-on experience with data collection setups, including teleoperation and custom tools.
- Proficient in Python and C++, with a focus on clean and modular coding practices.
- Basic hardware troubleshooting skills for both software and physical issues.
- Familiarity with robot perception, control, and navigation systems.
- Awareness of LLM/VLM technologies with a keen interest in applying them to robotics use cases.
- Proficient with Git, Docker, and collaborative development tools.
Preferred Qualifications:
- Experience deploying AI models on embedded platforms (e.g., Jetson Xavier/Nano, Coral TPU).
- Familiarity with edge AI frameworks (e.g., TensorRT, ONNX, OpenVINO).
- Previous work with robotic platforms such as Franka Emika Panda or WidowX.
- Experience in robot learning (imitation, RL) or multimodal learning (vision + language).
- Working knowledge of LLM tools (e.g., Llama.cpp, Ollama).
- Familiarity with robotic simulation environments (Isaac Sim, Gazebo, Webots).
- Experience working in labs with adherence to safety practices and maintenance protocols.
- Contributions to open-source robotics or AI projects, or personal robotics builds.
- Comfortable using Jira and collaborating in Agile environments.
TII is committed to addressing society's most significant challenges through scientific discovery and inquiry, fostered by state-of-the-art facilities and collaboration with leading international institutions. The institute champions an inquiry-based approach to forge new and disruptive breakthroughs in fields such as AI, advanced materials, autonomous robotics, cryptography, digital security, directed energy, quantum computing, and secure systems.
