Letters / Motivation letter for the Erasmus Mundus Master in Marine and Maritime Intelligent robotics program [3]

Hey guys, would you please review my letter of motivation. Thank you

letter of Motivation

Dear Members of the Selection Committee,

Through this letter of motivation, I would like to express my deep interest in the "Erasmus Mundus Joint Master's Degree in Marine and Maritime Intelligent Robotics" program. As a person who's fascinated by what one can achieve with science and technology, I have always been attracted to robotics and its applications, so much so that every decision I made during my academic career was primarily aimed at laying down the foundations that will eventually enable me to major in robotics. Therefore, being part of the MIR program represents, for me, the successful achievement that I have been looking for since my early days in preparatory classes, as I genuinely believe that the skills acquired through the program will be a true propeller towards my professional objectives.

From a very early age, I have always been a very inquisitive person who is attentive to details. Thus, it was a natural choice for me to enter the preparatory classes for engineering schools, where I gained a lot of knowledge in mathematics, physics, and programming, as well as some general engineering knowledge. At that time, I was already very curious to understand how an electric current could be interpreted as information that would subsequently lead to decision-making and cause the movement of a robot arm, for instance. Two years later, I passed the entrance exam to engineering schools by ranking among the top 3% of participants. Following my passion for robotics and autonomous systems, I chose to major in control system and automation engineering, which I consider to be the best choice I have made so far. The past three years have been incredibly fruitful and thrilling at the same time. I attended some exciting classes like multivariable control in the state space and frequency domain, digital systems, as well as robotics, which only consolidated my passion for robotics and my desire to continue in this field. The ability to change the internal dynamics of a system, and thus its natural behavior, using simple linear algebra was absolutely fascinating to me. So I immediately looked for an application I could implement in order to watch this phenomenon more closely, and I finally chose to build a self-balancing robot, which seemed to be a good application to see how a simple manipulation of eigenvalues could affect the behavior of the system.

During the past three years, I have done a few internships, including one at the Development Center of Advanced Technologies (CDTA Alger), which consisted of a small contribution to the implementation of a smart wheelchair evolving in an indoor environment. It was a short but very enriching experience that finally allowed me to distinguish between the different capabilities that mobile robotic systems have (from environmental perception to path and motion planning and actuator control) and helped me realize that what attracted me most in robotics was autonomous navigation, and particularly path and motion planning. Also, during this internship, I noticed the vital role of artificial intelligence in robotics and realized how crucial AI could be for robotics engineers. Therefore, I applied and was accepted the following summer for a scholarship offered by Samsung for an intensive artificial intelligence program. And as expected, it was a memorable experience where I met wonderful people with whom I realized a very interesting project entitled "Swarm Intelligence for Precision Farming".

During my last year of engineering studies, I chose two subjects to work on in the context of obtaining both my master's and state engineer degrees, which are, respectively, "visual localization and obstacle avoidance" and "visual simultaneous localization and mapping on lie groups". I started with the first one, which is a one-month project, where I am currently implementing state-of-the-art path planners. The second project will be of 6-month duration and will consist of a more detailed study of a v-SLAM approach using lie groups. These chosen subjects both demonstrate my clear commitment to this field.

Besides my clear passion for robotics, I am the kind of person who thrives on solving real-world problems and contributing to the positive evolution of technology. And I think that your program will allow me to do just that by giving me access to a specific field in which I can specialize, namely marine and maritime robotics, which I think is a truly compelling field, especially considering the huge economic impact it can have. Additionally, I am sure that I will be provided with high-quality education from recognized specialists from prestigious universities and industry leaders. Moreover, I am excited to have all the program courses, as I am very curious to see how different the modeling of marine systems can be from regular robot arms and mobile robots, as well as the application of artificial intelligence in autonomous marine systems.

Furthermore, I am looking forward to meeting new people from different parts of the world, sharing ideas with them and discovering their cultures. In my opinion, the ability and willingness to learn from others and to collaborate is what drives humans to evolve. Also, I am sure I will have no problems integrating myself into the program, especially in the first year. Indeed, being a native French speaker, my integration into French society will be even smoother, and I think this represents a good opportunity for me to help my fellow students with the language and get to know them better. Finally, I am very attracted to the research infrastructures provided by the main and associated partners. Having as an objective to complete a PhD in the field of autonomous navigation, I believe that such a comprehensive program, whether in terms of quality of teaching or infrastructure, would be ideal to enable me to achieve my goals.

Thank you for your interest in my application; please accept the expression of my deep respect.

Sincerely,

Sofiane Sid Ali DAIMELLAH