Introducing VU ASE
Welcome to the Autonomous Systems Engineering labs (ASE labs) at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam! Starting in April, at most 15 Computer Science students will be admitted to complete their Bachelor Project in our interdisciplinary and state-of-the-art-environment. Besides working with a team of enthusiastic experts in a variety of fields, ASE offers the unique opportunity to put your research into practice using an award-winning and innovative hardware- and software framework.
Research with us
At the ASE labs, we would like to welcome you to complete your Bachelor Project in Computer Science. Under our supervision, you will be working on a central research question in a team of two people. You provided an in-house designed and constructed Rover along with a modular software package to perform research and development in one of the following areas:
- Illumination and Camera Optimization
- Software Integration and Unit Testing
- Software and Network security
- Machine Learning
- Performance Engineering
- Control Methods for Autonomous Driving
- Energy-efficient Engineering and Green IT
- or something you come up with!
The Bachelor Project we offer is very interdisciplinary and spans much wider than research into Autonomous Driving only. You are encouraged to come up with your own research questions and topics. For questions about whether or not a topic or field or research is possible, email: ase@vu.nl
What to expect
After being accepted through our selection procedure, you will be working in a group to perform research in a chosen field. You will be handed your own individual Rover, which you can use for duration of the project. The Rover comes fully assembled and is able to drive autonomously right out of the box. You are also given access to a large shared lab environment where all equipment, technical and research support is provided. The Rover comes with a modular software framework that enables you to (re)write your software in any language you like. It comes equipped with a complete Linux installation and 8GB of RAM, to make the bar to entry as low as possible, allowing you to write and run software however suits your research best. We very much encourage students to explore their own research interests.
The project is designed to thoroughly challenge you in the following three areas:
- Implementation & Research
The focus lies on taking your research from theory to practice, with diligence and attention to detail. The complex nature of problems in computer science require staying sharp and attentive to details, thinking critically and always asking questions. You will implement your research and conduct experiments with the Rover and possibly exercising the iterative design process through trial and error.
- Software Engineering Principles
Since there is a strong emphasis on the implementation of your project, we will be enforcing software engineering best practices that are common place in industry. After this project you will be comfortable using tools like git and will have practiced documentation skills.
- Communication Skills & Group Work
We believe computer science students are not put through enough rounds of practice in public speaking and presenting. We want to reemphasize the importance of these skills especially before graduating and potentially starting careers in professional settings. You will receive guidance on how to present and we will provide you with feedback from two practice presentations before the final thesis presentation.
At ASE, you will combine many aspects of your Computer Science bachelor into a fully-packed research and development project: from requirements engineering to secure programming and from image processing to software design, this is your chance to show what you got.