PhD Student AI Innovations UI / UX / Assistant (f/m/d)

Work environment

How do you imagine the car of the future - intuitive, connected, personal? And what role will you play as a driver? How important will occupant interaction be in the vehicle of the future? In electrical/electronics development, we are responsible for the development of IID systems - or as the end user would say - for all the things that are fun in the vehicle. These include infotainment (functions and components), mobile online services, connectivity, sound and all display systems in the cockpit including the Human Machine Interface. Three doctoral fields are available in the department: "Development of an architecture for data processing of embedded vs. cloud LLMs", "development of an in-vehicle assistant by multimodal LLMs in the HMI", as well as "optimization of user interaction and personalization by agentic LLMs in vehicle infotainment systems". We invite talented and motivated graduates to join us on this exciting journey as part of a PhD. With us, you'll not only have the opportunity to work on groundbreaking projects, redefine occupant interaction, but also gain hands-on experience while working with state-of-the-art technology. Become part of a team that rethinks the driving experience of tomorrow - together we shape the future today!

Possible Tasks within this Role

• Researching the current state of the art in the areas of embedded LLMs, SLMs, edge-to-cloud deployments, multimodal LLMs and action models
• Deriving legislative, safety-critical and geographical requirements for processing data in the automotive context, e.g. on the basis of use cases
• Developing architectural concepts for data processing onboard and in-cloud, taking into account hardware requirements, implementing an assistant that processes static and dynamic driver-vehicle environment information including acoustic, haptic and visual input as well as a framework and a software architecture
• Implementing and applying the concepts on defined hardware, conducting empirical investigations as well as evaluating and classifying the concepts
• Documenting and preparing research results for internal stakeholders and the scientific community

The final doctoral topic is defined together with the professor. The prerequisite for cooperation is the confirmation of supervision and a confirmed definition of topics by the professor of a university or research institution entitled to award doctorates.

Qualification requirements

• Good to very good university degree qualifying for doctoral studies in computer science, business informatics, industrial engineering or a related field
• Extensive knowledge in the field of artificial intelligence, data analysis, statistics, human machine interface and user experience required
• Sound programming skills, preferably in Python, C++, R, MATLAB
• Strong initiative, willingness and ability to work in a team and structured way of working
• Strong communication and presentation skills
• English language level B2 and German language level C1

Keywords

​Dissertation, Human-Machine-Interaction​, HMI, Voice Assistant, Large Language Models, Small Language Models 

What we offer

• Attractive salary & 30 vacation days (+ 24.12. and 31.12. off)
• 35-hour week, flexible working hours, remote work
• Special conditions for the purchase and leasing of vehicles
• Free seminars on scientific work and interdisciplinary qualifications
• Participation in the doctoral network for scientific exchange with science representatives and other doctoral candidates within the Volkswagen Group

Contact person for this posting: Fabian Wenzel