Applications are welcomed for a paid research and development position in the University of Twente’s Engineering Technology Biomechatronics and Rehabilitation Technology group. The researcher will work with a postdoc on the COVR Awarded DROPSAW project.

The COVR Award has been established by the EU funded COVR project, which is putting together a toolkit for the safety testing and validation of cobots. Cobots are robots that share spaces, and often work, with humans. The COVR Award enables the awardee to develop their cobot, as well as team up with COVR experts (in this case from Roessingh Research and Development) to assess and validate its safety.

The DROPSAW (DuRability Optimisation of Powerful Soft Actuators for Wearables) project
Robotic Robotic exoskeletons have made headlines aiding the rehabilitation of people with strokes or spinal cord injuries. However, their weight, bulk, and rigid structure makes them impractical for daily use. Soft materials like clothing's fabrics are comfortable and light. They can actively assist movement, but until now have been weak and vulnerable to failing. We have made soft inflatable clothing that is powerful, comfortably applying up to 800 % of the torque of previous soft actuators, enough to assist with all the movements encountered during everyday life.

We need strong actuators that, when operated under recommended conditions, consistently behave and do not fail suddenly when highly loaded. Your role will be to do this by:

1. Building a test rig suitable for (accelerated lifetime) and failure (overloading) testing of our soft high power and torque actuators.
2. Evaluating how the current actuator design fails due to fatigue, and how it fails or copes with overloading.
3. Optimising the actuator’s design for safety.

This will see, for the first time, the safe realisation of soft wearable actuators that provide complete assistance.

You are highly motivated to apply your mechanical design skills to pioneer high power yet safe wearable technologies.

• You have a background in mechanical or mechatronics engineering.
• You have a practical attitude to solving mechanical design problems.
• You have familiarity with the use of traditional manufacturing, CNC, and rapid prototyping technologies (and can produce quality CAD drawings for these systems).
• You have familiarity with the programming and use of embedded systems such as Mbed, xPC (MathWorks), or Arduino.
• You ideally have familiarity with testing and fabrication of soft composites (rubbers, fabrics), garments (sewing), and/or soft actuators/sensors.
• You work and document accurately and efficiently.

Information and application
Please contact Allan Veale (a.j.veale@utwente.nl) for additional information about this position. Apply for the position by submitting the following documents:

• Motivation letter.
  Explain (a) why you are applying, (b) what makes you an outstanding researcher for this position, and (c) experience/achievements/projects that demonstrate your qualities relevant to the project.
• Curriculum vitae.
  List your education, work experience, relevant other activities, and date you could start working in this position.

This invitation remains open until the position has been filled, with the successful candidate ideally beginning as soon as possible. Submitted applications will be screened within three weeks of reception, after which selected candidates will be invited for an interview (the possibility of a video interview exists).

• A fulltime (38 hours per week) research and development position at the University of Twente for a duration of eight months.
• A salary in the range of € 2579,- and € 3123,- gross per month, depending on your education and experience.
• A beautiful and growing campus with sport facilities, opportunities for personal development, and driven colleagues.

The University of Twente. We stand for life sciences and technology. High tech and human touch. Education and research that matter. New technology which leads change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university of the Netherlands; divided over five faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. We have a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out groundbreaking research.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. Because of our diversity values we do particularly support women to apply.

The Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET) is one of the five faculties of the University of Twente. ET combines Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Industrial Design Engineering. Our faculty has approximately 1800 bachelor and master students, 400 employees and 150 PhD candidates. The departments of the faculty cooperatively conduct the educational programmes and participate in interdisciplinary research projects, programmes and the research institutes: Mesa+ Institute, TechMed Centra and Digital Society Institute.