As a group of researchers with core technologies in robot manipulation and computer vision, the Automation Research Team has a diverse background. We include researchers whose academic interests originate from dual university posts, as well as engineers with R&D and practical application experience at major manufacturers and venture companies. Our research activities range from submissions to top-level international conferences and journals in the field of research, to technology demonstrations, patents, and practical applications in collaboration with companies. By getting involved in the research activities of such a team, you will learn where your aptitude and interests lie as an engineer, and you will be able to chart your own career path. Once you understand your own preferences, you can properly chart your next step as an engineer, whether it is a post at a national research and development corporation or university, a researcher or engineer at a start-up or major company, or even starting your own business.

The first is the acquisition of technical competence in robotics and informatics. In most of the team's research activities, you will learn the fundamentals of robotics and tools (e.g., Robot Operation System (ROS)) during most of the team's research activities. The team will also learn to use platforms such as robotic arms (UR5, KUKA iiwa, Nextage, etc.) and mobile manipulators (Fetch Robot, Hello robot, etc.) and mobile manipulators (Fetch Robot, Hello robot, etc.). In addition, we also work on system integration using 3D sensors (PhoXi), 3D scanners (EinScan), VR (oculus, etc.), motion capture (Mocap, etc.), and various sensors (acceleration, heart rate monitor). The team maintains its own documentation and sample code in a Git environment, so newcomers can build a research environment based on this. In addition to robotics, we are also working on the application of machine learning, which has attracted much attention in recent years. Students will acquire skills in designing optimal learning models for each research topic, designing efficient training methods using simulators and real-world models, and demonstrating learning models on real robots. In particular, since research on deep learning and robotics is very competitive on a global scale, the entire team is engaged in catching up on common technologies and analyzing new research problems.
Second, you will also learn academic skills to become a world-leading researcher. When students and young researchers write papers, experienced team researchers will provide guidance for their papers. Based on this kind of guidance, we support them to improve their ability to submit papers to international conferences and journals, one of the most important outputs of their research activities. Our students have presented their research results in the Q1 journal and top international conferences in the field of robotics, and have also received the IEEE RAS JJC Young Award (ICRA), IROS, CASE, SICE Young Author Award (SII), and SI Best Presentation Award.

In the targeted research field, we need to have a complex set of technical skills, including robotics, machine learning, and computer vision. There are not many engineers in the world who have all of these skills. By cultivating these skills through team activities, as mentioned in the section on "Skills you will acquire," you should be able to flourish in the future society. Ideally, applicants should have research experience in one of the aforementioned research fields and have evidence of their research ability through conference presentations and paper submissions. We also emphasize that you have basic and applied skills in mathematics and physics, such as modeling of physical phenomena, which are the principles of the above research fields, objective functionalization and multi-objective optimization of problems set in the research, stochastic modeling, or knowledge of probability and statistics for this purpose. However, that is not all, and interesting research may be generated by those who loved implementation in robot contests, etc. by utilizing their individuality. Many research ideas that show impact at academic conferences or that are properly put to practical use in companies are simple approaches based on a careful understanding of principles and principles. Ideas are sometimes more easily noticed by fresh researchers who are not bound by conventional thinking. If you have something in mind, please do not be too formal about it and contact our team.
In terms of preparedness, it is important to be motivated to improve one's own abilities while enjoying the speed of research activities. In order to create research results at the top conference level and conduct practical R&D activities, it is necessary to materialize and demonstrate ideas in a short period of time. It is important to be motivated to improve one's own abilities while enjoying the speed of these research activities. Let's grow together so that we can work hard professionally and stoically to do something fun and exciting, and win good results or share them with many people.

Master's and Doctoral students: AIST Research Assistant System is available. For more details about the AIST RA system, please refer to
Click here (AIST Research Assistant System Introduction Page).
Conditions differ between the master and doctoral courses.

Young researchers with a Ph.D.: Post-doctoral and full-time positions are available. For more details, please contact
Researcher：Click here (AIST Research Staff Recruitment Information Page)
Post-doc：Click here (AIST Contract Staff Recruitment Information Page)

Engineers: Technical staff hiring is available. For more details, please contact
Click here (AIST Contract Staff Recruitment Information Page)）

CV formats:
English CV format (Word)

Consultation Contact: Please send to the email address below.
M-icps-am-contact-ml[＠]aist.go.jp
＊Please replace [＠] with @ before sending a message。

We are open to corporate partnerships, including joint research and technical consulting. If you are interested in our team members and technology, please feel free to contact us.

ー Research Topics

Through the application development of elemental technologies and middleware for practical use, support for practical use, demonstration tests of technologies and systems using the factory-simulated environment and convenience store-simulated environment in the Cyber Physical Systems Research Building, and joint intellectual property creation of applied technologies, we aim to create major research results with an impact that will surprise society and pave the way for solving new social issues. We also aim to create new avenues for solving social issues through joint intellectual property rights for applied technologies. We are also available for consultations with researchers who wish to conduct unconstrained and radical research, send researchers to deepen exchanges, or learn about research know-how.

ー Contract

There is a gap between research and development. In order to bridge this gap, it is necessary for both parties to carefully reconcile and raise awareness of each other from the research theme planning stage. If you are interested in our human resources, technology, and environment, but have not yet decided on a specific theme, we recommend a consulting contract. This is a process in which we listen to your ideas and help you to determine what is ideal for both parties and what needs to be done to create value for society. We would be happy to help you with our expertise. If you are interested, please feel free to contact us for a consultation.

ー Corporate Collaboration Achievements (alphabetical order)

Connected Robotics Inc., DENSO CORPORATION, Hamamatsu Photonics K.K., Hitachi Automotive Systems, Ltd. (now Hitachi Astemo, Ltd.), Kawasaki Heavy Industries, Ltd., Kyoto Seisakusho Co., Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, Omron Corporation, Omron Synex Corporation, SoftBank Corp., Telexistence Inc., Toyota Motor Corporation