Alternance: Haptics Signal Encoding

Alternance: Sensing signal encoding

InterDigital is looking for a student to join its team of researchers and engineers working on extending current research on haptics to more broad sensing technologies. The candidate will join the Interactive Media team to work on haptics & sensing encoding in a standardization context. The position will consist in studying the state of the art in sensing signal compression and propose new methods to improve current encoding standards. Part of the job will also consist in developing proof of concepts and demos to tests new solutions.

Context

The recent democratization of virtual reality has strongly re-invigorated the research and development on haptic technologies. This growing interest in the haptic community resulted in the release of numerous haptic products, including new consumer devices, authoring tools and plenty of haptic enabled VR experiences. However, this wide range of available haptic devices and haptic tools gave birth to a multitude of proprietary formats which make interoperability problematic. This slows down market adoption and raises the need for providing standardized formats and methods to encode and decode haptic signals. To address this limitation, two major standard organizations are currently working on coded representations of haptic data. Interdigital is especially involved in the standardization process of haptics through the ISO/IEC MPEG-I standard. This standard provides a first base for encoding both PCM and parametric signals for a variety of haptic modalities (vibrotactile, temperature, force, electrotactile, …). Haptics can be seen as one of the different sensing technologies, therefore InterDigital is currently looking at extending the concepts proposed and studied during the MPEG Haptics work for sensing at large. The concepts of graph and parametric signals can certainly be adapted to other sensing modalities.

Main Goal

The goal of the position will be to review existing sensing technologies (devices, signals, encoding) and propose new signal processing solutions and new parametric representations to encode different sensing modalities. Part of the work will consist in developing proof of concepts using state of the art technology (inc. completing the haptic devices from the lab, a robot arm and a haptic chair).

Objectives

The main tasks conducted in this job will be:

1. Study the state of the art of sensing signal representation formats and compression.

2. Study existing sensing standards, if exists.

3. Compare these standards using different objective metrics

4. Propose improved methods to encode and decode sensing signals

5. Develop proof of concepts to showcase the proposed solutions using some prototypes

6. Conduct user evaluations to ensure the viability of the proposed methods.

About InterDigital

InterDigital develops fundamental wireless and video technologies that are at the core of consumer devices, networks, and services worldwide. We solve many of the industry's most critical and complex technical challenges, providing solutions for more efficient broadband networks and a richer multimedia experience years ahead of market deployment. InterDigital has strategic relationships with many of the world's leading wireless and video companies. Founded in 1972, InterDigital is listed on NASDAQ and is included in the S&P SmallCap 600 Index.

The Team

The Interactive Media team is a team of highly motivated, fast paced, and highly skilled researchers with strong backgrounds in Computer Graphics, Computer Vision, Deep Learning, media content representation & coding, Interaction, and Extended Reality related to avatar representation and haptics. We actively participate in state-of-the-art future standards development activities in international standardization organizations such as ISO/IEC/MPEG, ITU-T/SG16, 3GPP SA4 and Khronos.

About You

You have a track record on one or several of the following domains or performed your studies in one or several of these domains: Signal processing, Computer Graphics, VR/AR/XR, Computer Vision, Electronic, Robotic. You enjoy innovating and researching novel techniques and are not afraid of addressing new topics such as haptics or extended reality. You have a keen eye on complexity aspects related to the algorithms you are developing. You are a team player, in a multicultural environment, sharing knowledge and expertise with your colleagues.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

· Research and develop technologies related to sensing signal encoding (inc. haptics and robotics).

· Provide corresponding Proof-of-concept software implementation and demos.

· Contribute to the team publication of research results in various forms, including patent applications, standards contributions, implementation, conference and journal publications, technical white papers.

Qualifications

· Master in Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Applied Math, or Computer Science. Position will be commensurate with the candidate’s qualifications and relevant experience (internship, summer jobs, school projects…).

· Proficient in C++ programming.

· Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Strong team player.

· Comfortable in English (reading, writing, and speaking).

· Some experience in Computer Graphics or Virtual Reality is a plus.

· Some experience on Unity/C# is a plus

Location: Rennes, France (some remote work is possible to some extent)

InterDigital is an equal employment opportunity employer. InterDigital will not engage in or tolerate unlawful discrimination with regard to any employment decision, policy or practice based on a person’s sex, gender, pregnancy (including childbirth, breastfeeding and related medical conditions), age, race, color, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship, military status, veteran status, mental or physical disability, medical condition, genetic information, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or any other factor protected by applicable federal, state or local  law. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including, but not limited to, recruiting, hiring, compensation, benefits, training, assignments, evaluations, coaching, promotion, discipline, discharge and layoff.