3D Point-Cloud Vision for a Broccoli Harvesting Robot

A PhD position is available in the Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems Research (L-CAS) at the University of Lincoln UK. The position is fully funded for 3 years, including a student bursary, tuition fees, and participation in international conferences and meetings. Please note: *this studentship is available to UK/EU candidates only*; at present we are not able to offer any studentships to international candidates.

The PhD position is offered in the area of robot vision using state-of-the-art 3D sensors for real-time detection, tracking and size estimation of crops, with a particular focus on robotic harvesting of crops such as broccoli. This PhD will build on our previous work presented at the IROS’16 conference and on our youtube channel (’Can You Pick a Broccoli? 3D-Vision Based Detection and Localisation of Broccoli Heads in the Field’), and is part of a project funded by the UK Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) to develop a broccoli harvesting robot. The studentship offers the opportunity to engage in scientific collaboration within an ambitious team, to work with state-of-the-art robotic hardware and software, to collaborate with industry partners to develop a prototype harvesting robot, and to benefit from excellent support to produce and disseminate original research contributions.

You should have a good Bachelors or Masters in Computer Science, Electronic Engineering, Mathematics or Physics. You must have excellent mathematical and coding skills (C++/Python, ROS), and be available to start work on the project as soon as possible.

In the first instance please contact Tom Duckett and Grzegorz Cielniak ([Email Address Removed],[Email Address Removed]), with your CV and transcript. Put “3D Point-Cloud Vision PhD application” in the subject line. Applications will be assessed as they arrive and, if appropriate, we will contact applicants to discuss things further.