Thesis Work on Safe and optimal planning and control for autonomous mining operations

About this role

At ABB, we help industries outrun - leaner and cleaner. Here, progress is an expectation - for you, your team, and the world. As a global market leader, we’ll give you what you need to make it happen. It won’t always be easy, growing takes grit. But at ABB, you’ll never run alone. Run what runs the world.

This Position reports to:

R&D Team Lead

Your role and responsibilities

This thesis explores the development of safe and optimal planning and control for the safety critical robotic-assisted operations in mining environments to facilitate their autonomous operation.

We aim to design and validate an optimal planner and controller that not only enforces optimal behavior in terms of repositioning and operation time costs among other criteria but also guarantees safety constraints satisfaction to prevent unsafe actions. This includes investigation of emergent physical AI and end-to-end control solutions and studying how they can improve the intelligence and efficiency of these applications.

• Details:
• Period: January 2027-June 2027, 5 months
• Number of credits:  30 ECTS
• Number of students for this thesis work: 1
• Location: ABB Corporate Research (Västerås)
• This thesis will develop safe and optimal control algorithms for autonomous operation in safety critical environments. The optimality and safety of the solution is critical.
• Goals:​
• Review state of the art and the current solutions.
• Investigating how physical AI framework can benefit this or similar applications.
• Design the safety guaranteed and optimal control algorithm and evaluate the performance of the solution.​​​

Qualifications for the role

• Strong background in control, robotics, machine learning, or similar disciplines
• Motivated to solve real-world problems using state-of-the-art methods.
• Self-driven and solution oriented.
• Good programming skills.​

More about us

Recruiting Manager Linus Thrybom, +46 730 80 9906, will answer your general questions. Supervisors Maryam Sharifi (maryam.sharifi@se.abb.com) and Alf Isaksson (alf.isaksson@se.abb.com) will answer questions about the thesis topic and expectations.

Positions are filled continuously. Please apply with your CV, academic transcripts, and a cover letter in English.

We look forward to receiving your application!

A future opportunity

This role is part of our talent pipeline, which means it’s not currently open, but we’re always looking for curious minds, bold thinkers, and people who want to make an impact.

Click Apply to express your interest and be considered for future opportunities that match your experience and aspirations.

At ABB, we welcome people from all backgrounds and believe that diverse perspectives help us build a cleaner, smarter future.

Apply today or visit Open www.abb.com to learn more about how we help run what runs the world.