Research Engineer (Dexterous in-hand manipulation)

Interested applicants are invited to apply directly at the NUS Career Portal. Please note your application will only be processed if you apply via NUS Career Portal.

NUS Career Portal link - https://careers.nus.edu.sg/job/Research-Engineer-%28Dexterous-in-hand-manipulation%29/34392-en_GB/

We regret that only shortlisted candidates will be notified.

Job Description

The research project focuses on developing real2sim2real learning and control methodologies for acquiring robust dexterous manipulation skills in complex, content-rich environments. The research engineer is expected to contribute to the following key aspects:
a) Develop real-to-simulation modeling and system identification methods that reconstruct manipulation scenes, object properties, contact dynamics, and robot–environment interactions from multimodal real-world observations, enabling high-fidelity and scalable simulation of dexterous manipulation tasks.

b) Design simulation-based skill learning and optimization methods for contact-rich dexterous manipulation, integrating differentiable simulation, trajectory optimization, reinforcement learning, and/or imitation learning to efficiently acquire transferable manipulation policies under complex physical constraints and diverse task conditions.

c) Develop sim-to-real adaptation and closed-loop skill refinement approaches that leverage multimodal sensory feedback, including vision, tactile, and proprioceptive information, to bridge the simulation-to-reality gap and continuously improve manipulation performance in the real world. The resulting real2sim2real framework will support scalable acquisition of generalizable dexterous manipulation skills and facilitate learning from rich human demonstrations, task semantics, and physical interactions for complex robotic manipulation scenarios.

Qualifications

● Master or Bachelor Degree in a relevant discipline, e.g. robotics, computer science, electrical/electronic engineering, etc.
● Extensive experience in dexterous hand manipulation, especially in in-hand skills with demonstrated expertise in real-world robotic applications.
● Substantial practical experience in real robot development and deployment, including multi-fingered robot systems.
● Proficient experience with various robotics simulators (e.g., MuJoCo, ISSAC) and excellent programming skills in C++ and Python with the ability to develop efficient, production-quality code.
● Open to Fixed Term Contract.