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Dear colleagues.</div>
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Exciting PhD opportunity! Fully funds fees for UK. Deadline this week.<br>
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Embodied AI capable of collaborating autonomously and trustworthily with humans in unstructured tasks and environments.<br>
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Join our team BERG <a href="https://le.ac.uk/engineering/research/berg" id="LPlnkOWAee79c770-c6ba-3c50-64e1-47b4efee111f" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="margin: 0px; text-align: left;">
https://le.ac.uk/engineering/research/berg</a> and DANILab <a href="https://www.danilab.org/" id="OWA77970d39-53a2-4114-0c80-dd24e888487a" class="x_UCscCatRDSWOVGPsBHtBFxutMeBcJczyetPkw x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" data-test-app-aware-link="" style="text-align: left;">
https://www.danilab.org/</a> !<br>
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<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Project with </span><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhou-hao/" id="OWA2c26ad7d-2318-f37c-aa97-614d9e0c5651" class="x_ember-view x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable">Daniel Zhou Hao</a><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);"> in
CMS</span></div>
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<b>Project title: Embodied Intelligence for Trustworthy Robotic Autonomy in Unconstructed Environments</b><br>
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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.<br>
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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.<br>
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Please contact <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/zhou-hao/" id="OWA6553a051-1161-0aed-3a9d-67e394b8ea40" class="x_ember-view x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable">
Daniel Zhou Hao</a> or myself to discuss <a href="mailto:t.c.pearce@le.ac.uk" id="OWA630cf139-5865-c392-0c3c-b74c739f1c69" class="x_UCscCatRDSWOVGPsBHtBFxutMeBcJczyetPkw x_OWAAutoLink" data-test-app-aware-link="" style="text-align: left;">
t.c.pearce@le.ac.uk</a><br>
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Application link and more project details here <a href="https://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/epsrc-dla" id="LPlnk">
https://le.ac.uk/study/research-degrees/funded-opportunities/epsrc-dla</a> and further project details here
<a href="https://le.ac.uk/-/media/uol/docs/study/funded-ops/2025-projects/epsrc-dla/hao-epsrc-dla-phd-studentship-project.docx" id="LPlnk">
https://le.ac.uk/-/media/uol/docs/study/funded-ops/2025-projects/epsrc-dla/hao-epsrc-dla-phd-studentship-project.docx</a></div>
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Application deadline: 31st January 2025<br>
Start date: 22 September 2025</div>
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Best, Tim.</div>
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<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(0, 84, 147);">Tim C. Pearce, PhD FInstP SFHEA (he/him/his) </span></p>
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(0, 84, 147);"><i>Reader in Bioengineering </i></span></p>
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<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;">Biomedical Engineering Research Group (BERG)<br>
School of Engineering</span><span style="font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(0, 84, 147);"><br>
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: black;">University of Leicester
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: red;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: black;"> University Road</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: red;"><b> |</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: black;"> Leicester
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: red;"><b>| </b>
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: black;">LE1 7RH<b>
</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: red;"><b>|</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: black;"> UK</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px;"> </span></p>
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</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(187, 0, 0);"><b>t:</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: black;"> +44 (0)116 223 1290<br>
</span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(187, 0, 0);"><b>e:
</b></span><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: blue;"><u>t.c.pearce@le.ac.uk</u></span></p>
<p style="margin: 0cm; font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: 13px; color: rgb(192, 0, 0);"><b>w:</b>
<a href="https://le.ac.uk/people/tim-pearce" id="OWA65661f86-340e-efd0-ae36-0414d4c0b7a3" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
https://le.ac.uk/people/tim-pearce</a></span></p>
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<b>w: </b><a href="https://le.ac.uk/engineering/research/berg" id="OWAa825b624-64b8-fb7e-7cc9-748ec0a75e5f" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="margin: 0px;">https://le.ac.uk/engineering/research/berg</a></div>
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<b>li: </b><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-pearce-808aaa83/" id="OWA8def2ad8-b902-013c-ff89-3b30ebf631eb" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="margin: 0px;">https://www.linkedin.com/in/tim-pearce-808aaa83/</a></div>
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<a href="https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/97def62d5929470cad007b8b5ba0b354@leicester.ac.uk/49a25705a2c448018ebdf65992a4126c6579692957646256408/calendar.html" id="OWA6d4d98e5-e201-c546-de62-93407ee4a784" class="x_x_OWAAutoLink" title="https://outlook.office365.com/owa/calendar/97def62d5929470cad007b8b5ba0b354@leicester.ac.uk/49a25705a2c448018ebdf65992a4126c6579692957646256408/calendar.html" data-auth="NotApplicable" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">
here</a></b></span></p>
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