PhD position in Soft Robotics Systems — ETH Zürich

Role overview

PhD position in Soft Robotics Systems 100%, Zurich, fixed-term print Drucken The Soft Robotics Lab within the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Systems at ETH Zurich is inviting applications for an open doctoral position.

We are looking for an exceptional, hands-on engineer to design, build, and bring to life the next generation of artificial musculoskeletal robots.

Our lab's goal is to build, model, and control robots in a fundamentally different way, so that they become more flexible, dexterous, capable, and adapt better to their environment.

The lab has showcased its research in robotic design and algorithms through real-world applications such as a robotic fish for underwater locomotion , soft robotic hands for pick-and-place tasks , and multi-segment arms for dynamic object manipulation.

Project background Today’s robots are mostly rigid, fragile, and a world apart from the agility and resilience of biological bodies.

We believe the path to capable, safe, and lifelike machines runs through musculoskeletal soft robots: systems built from compliant structures, bones, joints, and tendon-like actuation, much like the bodies of animals and humans.

As a PhD researcher in our group, you will lead the design, fabrication, and real-world testing of these robots end to end, turning ideas into working hardware that moves, grasps, and interacts with the physical world.

You will work across mechanical design, soft and compliant actuation, fabrication, electronics, and control to create complete robotic systems, then iterate relentlessly through hands-on experimentation until they perform in the real world.

Our recent work, from a biohybrid bone-muscle interface that gives robots real muscles and tendons to a robotic fish, dexterous soft hands, and dynamic manipulator arms, reflects the kind of ambitious, physical research you would be joining.

Job description

• You will take musculoskeletal soft robots from concept to working prototype: conceiving the architecture, designing and fabricating the structural and actuation elements, integrating sensing and control, and validating performance through systematic real-world testing
• Each design cycle feeds the next, so rapid prototyping, measurement, and iteration sit at the heart of the project
• Drawing inspiration from biological musculoskeletal systems, you will engineer how bones, joints, tendons, and muscles can be recreated with compliant materials and actuators, and how their interplay produces strength, dexterity, and robustness
• The goal is to build robots that derive much of their capability from their embodiment, achieving rich, adaptive behavior with less reliance on complex centralized control
• You will combine hands-on mechanical design, fabrication, and experimental testing with modeling, actuation, and control to deliver complete, functional robots, ranging from single actuated joints to integrated multi-segment limbs and full musculoskeletal bodies
• Close, day-to-day collaboration with the lab’s machine learning team and its muscles team will be required and is key to the project: you will integrate learning-based control and sensing with the team’s biological and artificial muscle technology to build robots that no single discipline could achieve alone Profile You are extremely curious, highly motivated, greatly independent, and you want to make a real difference with your research.