Working Student (m/f/d) Contact-Rich Manipulation and RL

About the role

We are looking for a Working Student (m/f/d) Contact-Rich Manipulation and RL. In this role, you will prototype and benchmark classical and learning-based approaches to contact-rich manipulation tasks, including insertion, assembly, and surface following, across simulation and real robot hardware.

Your Responsibilities

• Approach Survey: Survey recent literature on contact-rich manipulation and benchmark classical and learning-based approaches against each other on tasks such as insertion, assembly, and peg-in-hole.
• Force/Torque Feedback: Explore force and torque feedback strategies for contact state estimation and reactive control.
• Simulation Prototyping: Prototype and compare RL, MPC, and imitation learning pipelines in simulation, including learning from demonstration through behavior cloning and DAgger.
• Transfer Investigation: Investigate sim-to-real transfer through domain randomization, system identification, and reality gap analysis.
• Hardware Experiments: Run experiments on real robot hardware and systematically document which behaviors transfer from simulation and which do not.

Essential Skills

• Academic Background: Currently enrolled in a Master's programme in Robotics, Computer Science, or Mechanical Engineering.
• Technical Foundation: Solid foundation in at least one of robot control, motion planning, or machine learning, with enough depth to read, implement, and critically evaluate approaches from literature.
• Python Proficiency: Working proficiency in Python for prototyping, scripting simulation pipelines, and running experiments.
• Simulation: Ability to set up and run robot manipulation experiments in simulation environments such as MuJoCo or similar.
• Literature Engagement: Ability to read recent research papers, extract implementable ideas, and compare approaches in a structured and reproducible way.

Beneficial Skills

• Force/Torque Sensing: Familiarity with force and torque feedback for contact state estimation or reactive control.
• ROS2: Basic familiarity with ROS2 for hardware integration and experiment execution.
• Real Hardware: Prior experience running experiments on robot hardware, including in a lab or course context.

What we offer

• Practical learning opportunities to complement your studies.
• Dynamic high-tech company combined with financial soundness and world class investors.
• Join an interdisciplinary, international team with 60+ different nationalities in a collaborative work environment.
• Corporate Benefits Program that covers health, mobility and learning with 100 € net per month.
• Modern office facilities with a rooftop terrace overlooking Munich, free drinks & fruits, and regular company events contribute to a good working environment.

About us

Agile Robots SE is an international high-tech company based in Munich, Germany with a production site in Kaufbeuren and more than 2300 employees worldwide. Our mission is to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and robotics by developing systems that combine state-of-the-art force-moment-sensing and world-leading image-processing technology. This unique combination of technologies allows us to provide user-friendly and affordable robotic solutions that enable intelligent precision assembly. 

This is made possible by our employees, who bring out the best in each and every day with creativity and enthusiasm. Become part of this team and shape the future of robotics with us!

We are proud of our diversity and welcome your application regardless of gender and sexual identity, nationality, ethnicity, religion, age, or disability.