PhD Fellowship: Autonomous Farming & Digital Twins

University of Southern Denmark - SDU; Odense; On-site; DKK 340,000 - 416,000; Full time

Job summary

University of Southern Denmark – MMMI in Odense invites PhD candidates to join the Robotic Intercropping team. This three-year salaried PhD fellowship focuses on autonomous agricultural robots, digital twins, and safe operation to enable sustainable farming, biodiversity, and reduced chemical use.

You will collaborate with Denmark and Netherlands partners, develop lightweight robots and DTs, integrate multi‑modal sensing, and contribute to publications.

Qualifications

• Two-year master's degree in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science, or an equivalent field.
• Specialization in digital twins and software engineering of control systems.
• Experience with swarm robotic systems, manipulator design, cyber-physical systems, SIMULINK, and robotic software development.
• Knowledge of mechanical design, control system theory, statistics, actuation, sensing, rapid prototyping, and manufacturing.
• Experience with ROS, Gazebo/NVIDIA Isaac/Omniverse or CoppeliaSim for simulation, and data/cloud platforms.

Responsibilities

• Be a core member of a team developing lightweight, modular robots and digital twins for scalable, precise interventions in complex intercropping environments.
• Engage in interdisciplinary research integrating robotic systems and digital twins with multi-modal sensing and AI, aligned with agronomist-defined needs.
• Participate in integration and field testing with Robotic Intercropping partners.
• Design software architecture; integrate multi-modal data and models (e.g., crop competition, farm-level); implement “what-if” simulation; develop robust interfaces (e.g., ROS) for planning, navigation, and precision actions.
• Collaborate with experts in plant science, robotics, statistics, and AI to bridge agroecology and robotic control.

Skills

Robotics

Digital twins

Interdisciplinary research

AI

Education

Master's degree in Robotics, Electrical Engineering, Software Engineering, Computer Science

Tools

ROS

Gazebo

NVIDIA Isaac/Omniverse

CoppeliaSim

Job description

University of Southern Denmark – MMMI in Odense invites PhD candidates to join the Robotic Intercropping team. This three-year salaried PhD fellowship focuses on autonomous agricultural robots, digital twins, and safe operation to enable sustainable farming, biodiversity, and reduced chemical use.

You will collaborate with Denmark and Netherlands partners, develop lightweight robots and DTs, integrate multi‑modal sensing, and contribute to publications.