Post Doctoral Fellow

The Department of Mechanical Engineering at University of Houston invites application for a post-doctoral position in the interdisciplinary field of robotic enabled inspection of subsea oil and gas structures under the joint supervision of Professor Zheng Cheng with expertise in underwater robotics, Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs), and path planning and Professor Gangbing Song with expertise in structural damage detection and monitoring, ultrasonic transducers, and machine learning. The candidate once hired will work on a three-year BSEE (Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement) funded project. The objective of this project is to develop transformative engineering technology that will lead to a time efficient and cost effective robotic system for the inspection of subsea oil and gas structures, including pipeline, various connections such as bolted flanges. To achieve this objective, Remote Operated Vehicles (ROVs) equipped with multiple stress wave-based smart touch sensors, video cameras, and scanning sonars will be developed to compose such a robotic system. Swimming along the subsea structure, the ROVs can inspect key components such as bolted connections. In this project, we have the following specific aims: 1. develop automatic control and underwater navigation for ROVs to carry out smart touch inspection; 2. develop a robotics enabled and machine learning based active sensing approach for inspection of subsea connection structures, such as flanges; 3. integrate ROVs with all physical components and conduct comprehensive testing with industry partners.

Additional Job Posting Information:

Basic requirements:

PhD degree in mechanical engineering or electrical engineering

Specialized in dynamics system and control, robotics

Experienced in structural health monitoring and diagnosis, or a related discipline

Experienced in machine learning and deep learning

Capable of demonstrating excellence in robotics-related topics, such as robot kinematics, dynamics, control, sensing and perception, manipulation, motion planning, or navigation.

Advanced requirements:

Practical experience in underwater robotics

Experienced in robotic manipulator design and fabrication

Experienced in visual servoing control

Experienced in piezoceramic transducers

Experienced in monitoring/inspecting subsea connections

Experienced in stress-wave/ultrasonic based inspection or monitoring

Preferred requirement:

The possession of strong experience and skills in both underwater robotics and stress-wave/ultrasonic based inspection or monitoring

EEO/AA

Doctoral and No experience

Requires singular knowledge of a specialized advanced professional discipline or the highest level of general business knowledge, normally acquired through attainment of a directly job-related terminal degree or equivalent formal training in a recognized field of specialization that is directly related to the type of work being performed .No experience is required.