Post doc – Remote technician assistance via multimodal interfaces F/M

about the role

Your role is to carry out a Post PhD on the theme of Remote Assistance of a technician via multimodal interfaces as part of the 5GMetaverse project financed by the BPI.

The ambition of the 5GMetaverse project is to enable the emergence of innovative products, services and solutions based on 5G that will revolutionize industrial services, particularly in terms of remote collaboration and teleworking in the industrial world. Today, augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR) and the Metaverse make it possible to interconnect a physical space with its digital model in real time. The synchronization achieved through the digital twin enables interactions performed in real or virtual space to impact both environments, enabling different users to communicate and collaborate remotely. In the context of the augmented technician, remote experts can assist field technicians in assembly, maintenance or inspection operations. The democratization of VR and AR peripherals, the development of low-latency, high-speed networks and the growth of the Internet of Things in the industrial sector are all factors that will increase interest in and enhance these remote assistance solutions.

The goal of the Post PhD is to explore new metaphors for interaction, visualization and remote control, enabling a user to assist a field technician. Recent work has shown the limitations of current remote assistance systems in terms of the modalities exploited. Compared to the state of the art, the aim is to propose multimodal metaphors, i.e. exploiting AR but also ambient interactions through the digital twin, based on the various sensors and actuators in the real world (presence sensors, screens, lighting systems, robots, drones, etc.). This type of multimodal metaphors can have multiple advantages, such as eliminating the need for fragile and expensive AR equipment and leaving the operator’s hands free, acting on the technician’s environment rather than just guiding it, and finally making human-machine interactions more reliable and removing communication ambiguities. The key will be to find the right combination of modalities to deliver these benefits.

In the context of this Post PhD you will contribute to the proposal of new multimodal remote assistance metaphors, the development the associated software components and the evaluation of their impact on improving communication and collaboration from a user point of view.

about you

• Skills
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Virtual and Augmented Reality
  • Basics of interactive system experimentation and statistical analysis of experimental result
  • Developing in Unity with C#
  • English
• Education
  • PhD Thesis in the field of human-machine interaction linked to virtual reality, augmented reality or robotics
• Experience
  • Publications in peer reviewed conferences and journals of the domain such as IEEE VR/ IEEE ISMAR/ACM VRST, TVCG, Frontiers in Virtual Reality
  • Creation of collaborative virtual environments

additional information

As part of this post PhD, you will work in a stimulating scientific environment, marked by its multidisciplinary (computer science, ergonomics, design, psychology, sociology, etc.). You will have access to the latest virtual and augmented reality equipment (Magic Leap 2, Hololens 2, Quest pro, etc.). You will be working on the 5GMetaverse collaborative project with a consortium of industry and academic players, and on concrete use cases.

department

Orange Innovation brings together the research and innovation activities and expertise of the Group’s entities and countries. We work every day to ensure that Orange is recognized as an innovative operator by its customers and we create value for the Group and the Brand in each of our projects. With 720 researchers, thousands of marketers, developers, designers and data analysts, it is the expertise of our 6,000 employees that fuels this ambition every day. Orange Innovation anticipates technological breakthroughs and supports the Group’s countries and entities in making the best technological choices to meet the needs of our consumer and business customers.

Within Innovation, the eXperience Design Lab (xdlab) aims at puting the understanding of the human being at the heart of projects and innovation process, to make Orange experience more memorable. Its missions are:

1/ The realization of experience elements for the group’s projects and products, the exploration and materialization of new experience concepts in close collaboration with the marketing and technical teams.

2/ Building the design vision and defining the fundamentals of the Orange experience, developing know-how, tools and UX methods, and disseminating them throughout the group and its projects

contract

Post Doc

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