The Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence (BCAI) was created in 2017 out of existing competence centers to deploy cutting-edge AI technologies across Bosch products and services creating solutions that are “Invented for life”. We employ roughly 270 associates worldwide, dedicated to over 185 projects within seven locations: Germany, India, United States, Israel and China. Using data from Bosch’s various business divisions, we conduct cutting-edge research that focuses on safe, secure, robust, and explainable AI. We design and implement AI for smart, connected, and autonomous technologies across Bosch business sectors. By collaborating with international partners, we are committed to fostering scientific exchange. We actively look for opportunities to expand our research network further and to collaborate with industry thought leaders.
Bosch, PhD position, Hybrid AI for Industry 4.0: Combining Knowledge Representation and Reasoning with Machine Learning, Renningen (Stuttgart Metropolitan Area), Germany
- Publication date
- Closing date
- Level of education
05-01-2021
Until filled
MsC
Roles & responsibilities
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the central pillars of Industry 4.0 and Internet of Things, a global trend towards smart and highly automated factories. AI empower manufacturing by representing physical equipment and processes with digital representations – Digital Twins – that allow production simulation, process monitoring, analytics and optimization. Development of such AI solutions is complex and highly demanding. Moreover, existing AI solutions are often developed ad hoc and tailored to individual use cases. This is not sufficient for the context of Industry 4.0. Thus, there is a pressing need for methods and systems to lower the complexity bar of AI development for industry and to make AI solutions more reusable, more accessible to a wider set of stakeholders and more collaborative.
The purpose of this PhD research project is to address these needs with Hybrid AI by combining Neuro and Symbolic AI methods. Symbolic AI, including Knowledge Representation and Reasoning, Knowledge Graphs, ontologies and rules, allows to formally define Digital Twins and capture manufacturing domain knowledge, analytical routines, ML modules and pipelines. Neuro AI, including Machine Learning (ML), knowledge embedding, and knowledge discovery, allows to enhance and adapt these Digital Twins to various application scenarios and to learn patterns in existing ML pipelines, generalize example sets of ML solutions or to search for the optimum in a space of parametrized ML solutions. Such Hybrid AI approaches and Industry 4.0 context give a great variety of challenging research topics for PhD candidates. The topics range from foundational to applied and give a great opportunity to do top-tier research and publish at top-tier venues as well as to test and evaluate novel techniques and methods in real industrial scenarios of Bosch.
PhD candidates will enjoy top quality inspiring research in an enthusiastic international environment of researchers, other PhD candidates and industrial professionals from Bosch and its partners, in particular from the SIRIUS research centre at the University of Oslo.
The final PhD topic is subject to the university.
We are looking for a strong team player with affinity for research and a focus to see things working in practice, methodical and conceptual strength and creativity, and a self-motivated personality who will take initiative to solve problems.
Minimum qualifications:
- Education: excellent master degree in computer science or comparable subject
- Personality: Self-motivated, open-minded and inter-cultural team player with good communication and presentation skills
- Working Practice: Result-oriented and ability to work both independently and within a team environment
- Experience and Knowledge:
- Profound experience in knowledge representation and reasoning, in particular, description logics and ontology reasoning, experience with knowledge engineering and data integration
- Experience with machine learning and respective state-of-the-art toolkits (e.g. Tensorflow/Pytorch)
- Proven programming skills (e.g. Python/Java/C++)
- Languages: fluent in English (written and spoken)
- Experience in writing scientific publications is a plus
Requirements
We offer
Working at Bosch means working toward improving quality of life all across the globe. Whether in the areas of mobility solutions, consumer good, industrial technology, or energy and building technology, BCAI offers a unique opportunity to drive this improvement through applied industrial AI research.
You will work jointly with an excellent industrial AI research team on challenging topics and we offer access to a world-class scientific network in the field.
As a PhD student, you will be affiliated with the Bosch Center for Artificial Intelligence and with a top European university to obtain a PhD degree.