April 10, 2024

Intern research develops into research paper adopted by international conference

Researcher, Visual Intelligence Research Laboratories
Sarin Kittisares

Born in Thailand. Sarin joined NEC after completing a doctorate program at a graduate school in Japan in 2023. During his school years, Sarin majored in mechanical engineering and studied exoskeleton suits for assisting the physical movement of the elderly and the disabled. After joining NEC, he has been working primarily on technologies to remotely control robots using AI.

Joining AI control internship program to expand knowledge in mechanical engineering

What got me to apply for the NEC internship was the WISE Program (Doctoral Program for World-leading Innovative & Smart Education), which I was participating in. I needed to participate in two internships to complete this program, so I chose NEC as one of the internships among the available programs. The research topic that I applied for then was AI-driven robot control. I also used to study robots, but it was more focused on the hardware design of exoskeletons back then. Although I had also taken AI and programming in classes at the university, I had no real-world experience, so I decided to give it a challenge since I felt that it was a good opportunity to expand my horizon.

Before I started my internship, I discussed with the NEC employees what theme to work on. While using AI-driven control was already decided, I still needed to choose one application from several options, including automated guided vehicles (AGVs), drones, and hydraulic excavators. Among such applications, I chose AGV used at warehouses for my research theme.

The term of my internship was about two months. I arrived at the office around 10:00 and left around 16:30 (Note 1). While teleworking was possible, I went to the lab relatively often because I needed to work on the robot and collect data from the experiments. I worked from home when analyzing the experiment data. Half of the time I worked in the office while the other half I worked remotely.

Participating in collaborative research as part-time employee after completing internship

The research project I was involved in during his internship was one concerning Risk-Sensitive Stochastic Control Technology, which is currently covered in a press release. This technology adopts a model that predicts control errors to balance risk and reward. I was engaged in the research of this error model. First, I wrote a program to control the robot using a gamepad, and then I conducted experiments where commands for different types of movements were sent to the robot using the gamepad. I compared the ideal path and the actual path of the robot and found  that the angle of caster wheels has a huge impact on the movement of the robot, so I focused on this part in building a machine learning model that accurately predicts errors.

I managed to complete the model during internship. Then, during our last meeting, the team leader suggested that we should publish our results at a conference, and I agreed. Upon starting the research again, I signed a part-time employment contract with NEC in order to access NEC’s data for work. The research paper I wrote was presented at the IFAC World Congress 2023, one of the largest international conferences in the field of automatic control (Note 2).

Reaching for the goal in a trustworthy research environment

I was thinking of employment in the industry after my doctorate from the start, but when I was just about to start job hunting, I heard from my supervisor from the internship that NEC was going to start recruiting. After exchanging information about the research I was working on at the time, I applied for the position and got an offer after a very quick screening. I happily accepted the offer and decided to join NEC.

I was able to work on a clear and fruitful research theme during internship, with regular support from a mentor. I had positive feelings toward NEC’s solid corporate climate, and it also meant a lot to me that people around me were helpful and created a relaxed atmosphere.

Since I studied at a Japanese graduate school, I communicate with other people in Japanese within the organization, but I can also communicate in English with researchers. Even now, whenever I can't find the words to express myself in Japanese, I can use English, so there is hardly any occasion that I feel inconvenienced in terms of language.

My goal is to create society where the elderly can live a healthy active life. I hope to contribute to assisting mobility and reducing labor-intensive workloads at factories and warehouses. My research originates from wanting to help my mother, who started having problems walking with age. Thailand is also undergoing societal aging like is the case in Japan. I hope my robotics technologies can contribute to a society where people with disabilities and the elderly can live comfortably.