Vacancy Junior or Postdoctoral researcher AI-Driven Predictive Maintenance and Inspection for Urban Infrastructure

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Job description

Do you want to work at the intersection of artificial intelligence, data engineering, and future-proof infrastructure management while collaborating with municipalities and industry partners?

We are looking for a Postdoctoral or Junior Researcher to join a multidisciplinary team developing data-driven Digital Twins for predictive maintenance and inspection of urban infrastructure.

The position is embedded within the National Growth Fund programme Data-driven maintenance of infrastructure and is closely connected to ongoing research on AI-driven infrastructure management at TU Delft. The project is carried out in collaboration with the Municipality of Amsterdam and industry partners active in infrastructure inspection and asset management. The position will run parallel to a PhD on Data- and AI-driven Transportation Infrastructure Life-Cycle Extension, that has started in 2024.

Cities collect vast amounts of data about roads, bridges, quay walls, underground utilities, and other infrastructure assets. However, these datasets are often fragmented across departments and organisations, stored in incompatible formats, and difficult to reuse for advanced analytics. As a result, the potential of AI technologies for predictive maintenance remains largely unused. The goal of this project is to bridge the gap between heterogeneous infrastructure datasets and scalable AI-driven decision-support systems. You will develop methods and frameworks that transform fragmented inspection and maintenance data into interoperable, AI-ready information models that support predictive maintenance and infrastructure resilience.

The project aims to deliver:

• AI-ready data models for infrastructure inspection and maintenance.
• Improved predictive models for infrastructure degradation and maintenance planning.
• A reusable framework for data harmonisation, enrichment, and interoperability that can be adopted by municipalities across the Netherlands.
• Scientific publications and open research outputs.

Your Role

You will work on the development of a data-driven framework for predictive infrastructure maintenance, supporting the development of predictive maintenance and inspection AI model, parallel to an ongoing PhD project. The work includes:

• Integrating heterogeneous and multimodal datasets, including inspection records, imagery, sensor observations, maintenance logs, and asset inventories.
• Developing harmonised data models and semantic structures for infrastructure management.
• Designing data spaces and interoperability solutions that enable data sharing between municipalities, infrastructure operators, and technology providers.
• Modelling dependencies between infrastructure assets such as roads, bridges, quay walls, and underground systems.
• Creating benchmark environments for validating AI-based predictive maintenance approaches.
• Investigating hybrid AI architectures that combine data-driven models with physics-based simulations and engineering models.
• Publishing scientific results in leading journals and conferences.

The team

The candidate will combine expertise on georelated infrastructure and asset-data, digital twins, and algorithmic decision-making. She/he/they will work in a team with Dr Charalampos Andriotis (AiDAPT Lab), PhD candidate Amy Sterrenberg and Prof. Dr Jantien Stoter (3D Geoinformation). The candidate will closely collaborate with researchers, engineers, and stakeholders associated with the City of Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Institute of Advanced Metropolitan Solutions.

Research group

AiDAPT is TU Delft’s AI-Lab for Design, Analysis and Optimization in the Faculty of Architecture & Built Environment. The lab conducts research on decision-making under uncertainty for structural and architectural systems, at the intersection of risk & reliability, optimization, and machine learning. It is a vibrant team of engineers and computer scientists that work on novel physics-based and data-driven frameworks to understand, control, and improve built environment resilience and sustainability. As part of the TU Delft AI Initiative, AiDAPT has links with other Faculties and the ELLIS Unit.

The 3D geoinformation research group focuses on the technologies underpinning geographical information systems (GIS), and aims at designing, developing, and implementing better systems to model 3D cities, buildings and landscapes. It is a multidisciplinary group of around 25 people, including computer scientists, geomatics engineers, and geographers; 6 of them are tenured staff (1 professor, 2 associate-professor, and 3 assistant-professor). It has a history of successful collaborations with the industry and the government: its research has led to open source software and standards for the management and use of 3D geo-data.

Job requirements

We are looking for candidates who:

• Hold an MSc (for junior researcher) or PhD degree (for senior/postdoc researcher) in Civil Engineering, Computer Science, Geomatics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Infrastructure Systems, or a related field.
• Experience with data integration, data modelling, and interoperability standards.
• Experience with machine learning, predictive analytics, or AI applications.
• Strong programming skills (e.g., Python).
• Experience with geospatial data, asset management, or infrastructure systems is highly desirable.
• Strong communication skills and the ability to work in interdisciplinary teams.
• Excellent written and spoken English.

What we offer

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (based on scale 10: € xxxxx - € xxxxx. The employment contract is offered for 2 years. The position is open for 38-40 hours per week. The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

For international applicants, TU Delft has the Coming to Delft Service. This service provides information for new international employees to help you prepare the relocation and to settle in the Netherlands. The Coming to Delft Service offers a Dual Career Programme for partners and they organise events to expand your (social) network.

How to apply

Your application dossier should contain:

• A detailed CV,
• A motivation letter (max 1 page) explaining your interest in the research topics to be addressed and describing how you fit in the advertised position,
• A list of (up to) 3 publications that best relate to this job offer,
• A list of (up to) 3 previous/current projects that best relate to this job offer, with a short summary of the projects and a brief description of the candidate’s role in them,
• Contact details of two references with contact information (recommendation letters from them are not required at this stage).

Please note:

• You can apply only online. We will not process applications sent by email and/or post.
• A pre-Employment screening can be part of the selection procedure.
• Please do not contact us for unsolicited services.

For more information about this position, please contact directly Dr Charalampos Andriotis or Prof. Dr Jantien Stoter.