PhD Position for Safe Autonomous Trucks Technical University of Munich, Germany

The research group Cyber-Physical Systems of Prof. Matthias Althoff at the Technical University of Munich offers a PhD position in the area of safe autonomous trucks in collaboration with MAN Truck & Bus. The Technical University of Munich is one of the top research universities in Europe fostering a strong entrepreneurial spirit and international culture.

Expected Starting Date: 01 May-July 2024

Closing Date for Applicants: 15 April 2024

Duration: 3 years with a possible extension

Project and Job Description

Trucks transport the most goods worldwide: In Europe, they account for around 70% of freight traffic. However, 44% of long-distance drivers would not choose their profession again and 94% of logistics companies are currently struggling with driver shortages. In addition, around 90% of truck accidents are caused by human error. Autonomous trucks are the answer to many major challenges facing the modern trucking industry: Increasing truck uptime, driver productivity, driver shortages, safety, and environmental friendliness.

A major obstacle towards this promising future is to guarantee in a mathematically provable way that the automated system always works correctly in diverse environments with varying road and weather conditions and a varying degree of collaboration of traffic participants. This endeavor is especially challenging since each traffic situation is different and thus automated driving cannot be verified beforehand, requiring that the vehicle verifies itself periodically given the current traffic situation.

We address the important requirement to guarantee safe, correct, and coordinated motion of automated truck by establishing a framework, which integrates the consideration of traffic rules, maneuver and trajectory planning, and formal verification in a unique framework to provide intrinsic correctness. We will specify traffic rules and further specifications with temporal logics. These specifications will be checked using reachability analysis.

The developed methods will be tested in real trucks provided by MAN Truck & Bus. Since physical test drives are costly and time-consuming, we will accompany them with computer simulations. In order to automatically generate challenging traffic scenarios, we will also use the developed methods to control other traffic participants in a way that challenges the decision making of the truck.

Previous Work

A previous work on safe adaptive cruise control (ACC) can be found here: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/doc/1546127/ehvaw3rkgmclzo915p5ltli80.Althoff-2021-TIV.pdf
An example of the formalization of traffic rules be found here: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/doc/1552345/321027549433.pdf
A previous approach on reachability analysis of autonomous vehicles is described here: https://mediatum.ub.tum.de/doc/1281511/81346.pdf

Job Specifications

• Excellent Master’s degree (or equivalent) in computer science, engineering, or related disciplines (typically mathematics, physics).
• Fluency in spoken and written English is required.
• Good programming skills in at least one programming language, e.g. MATLAB, C/C++, Python.
• Highly motivated and keen on working in an international and interdisciplinary team
• Applicants with strong background in the following fields are preferred:
  • Autonomous vehicles
  • Robotics
  • Motion planning
  • Control theory
  • Logics
  • Formal methods

Context

The applicant will be directly advised by Prof. Matthias Althoff (

https://www.ce.cit.tum.de/cps/members/prof-dr-ing-matthias-althoff/

). Besides excellent skills for conducting innovative science, the candidate should also be talented in implementing research results within the MAN Truck & Bus framework and the

CommonRoad

framework and lead teams of students.

Our Offer

PhD remuneration will be in line with the current German collective pay agreement TV-L E13 (around 4300 Euros/month). Technical University of Munich is an equal opportunity employer committed to excellence through diversity. We explicitly encourage women to apply and preference will be given to disabled applicants with equivalent qualifications.

Contact

International candidates are highly encouraged to apply. Please submit your complete application (in English or German) via our application form: https://wiki.tum.de/display/cpsforms/Ph.D.+Application . Fill out all mandatory fields (*) and kindly use “Safe Autonomous Trucks” as the “Title of Position”. Please do not include a cover letter.

The position is suitable for disabled persons. Disabled applicants will be given preference in case of generally equivalent suitability, aptitude and professional performance.

Data Protection Information:
When you apply for a position with the Technical University of Munich (TUM), you are submitting personal information. With regard to personal information, please take note of the Datenschutzhinweise gemäß Art. 13 Datenschutz-Grundverordnung (DSGVO) zur Erhebung und Verarbeitung von personenbezogenen Daten im Rahmen Ihrer Bewerbung. (data protection information on collecting and processing personal data contained in your application in accordance with Art. 13 of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)). By submitting your application, you confirm that you have acknowledged the above data protection information of TUM.

Kontakt: Sebastian Mair (sebi.mair@tum.de)