Position description

Environment:
The main scientific objective of the Bunraku team-project is achieving the most realistic interaction between real humans and virtual ones inside distributed virtual worlds.
To do so, one must be able to simulate the virtual human behavior inside the digital mock up in the most realistic way.

Simulating individual and collective human behavior requires to use several technological building blocks. Some building blocks developed by Bunraku allow simulating physical, reactive, cognitive, rational, and social parts of a virtual human interacting with their environment.

Some of these building blocks are licensed to Golaem (see http://www.golaem.com), a recently created startup whose domain concern the edition of software specialized in human behavior simulation. The targeted domains are manufacturing industry (production or maintenance simulation, computer assisted training) and public spaces operators (quality of service and safety).

A classical approach is to realize a dedicated simulator by type of applicative domain, using a middleware. However the cost is huge and only some major account can afford it. We want to go further by seeking to integrate all fundamentals of the human behavior in a generic, customizable and extendable platform, thus saving a lot of time and costs during the development of a business driver simulator. Our goal is then to maximize the factorized elements, while offering the possibility to develop quickly and modularly the missing parts for a specific application.

The recruited engineer’s work will consists in participating to the development of the generic goal oriented behavior simulation platform integrating all the previously presented software components while offering the possibility to easily build specific versions dedicated to different businesses.

Missions:

The mission consists in participating to specifications and development of the architecture of the generic behavior simulation platform in collaboration with other engineers of the team. Generic means that it will have to implement all basics individual and collective behaviors of a virtual human (outside of specific business driven behaviors) and to be easily extendable and customizable in order to be instantiated as a business driven simulator following a given specification.

Several engineers and researchers of the team-project Bunraku are currently working in 2009 of the previously mentioned building blocks and the two recruited engineers will have to work in collaboration with them in 2010 in order to terminate et experiment the first version of the complete generic goal oriented behavioural simulation platform.

Activities:

The tasks to be carried out are:
Task 1: create tools to configure the simulation based on configuration files and a dynamic population generation engine based on statistical data;
Task 2: extend the functionalities of multilayered behavioural model, including the integration of a new reactive navigation algorithm;
Task 3: extends the module controlling actions of the real user, especially, when the point of view is not subjective (show the avatar performing the selected action);
Task 4: create simulations restitution and analysis tools
Task 5: manage massive crowds in huge and complex environments
Communication interface between components (for example CORBA)
Parallelize and distribute the execution of components
Task 6: participate to the creation of a prototype integrating all the preceding components in order to show the completeness of the architecture and its good functioning in an exemplary scenario

Educational background

- ingénieur (ou équivalent bac+5) en informatique

Required skills

- computer sciences engineer (M. Sc.) with knowledge in graphical programming and software design.
- proficiency in C++.
- GUI (namely Qt library) experience is not required but would be a real advantage.

Employer seek following qualities

Communication abilities and team spirit are essentials.

Gross salary (before tax)

Reply this position offer

Duration of the contract

Foreseeable starting date

2010/01/02

Location

INRIA Rennes - Bretagne Atlantique Research Centre (http://www.inria.fr/rennes/)

Scientific research group

BUNRAKU

Scientific leader

Stéphane DONIKIAN

Application should be addressed to

Fabrice Lamarche
Centre de recherche INRIA Rennes - Bretagne Atlantique
Equipe BUNRAKU
Campus de Beaulieu
35042 Rennes cedex

Tél : 02.99.84.25.19