Aerial Autonomy Research Engineer

Taleo; Pasadena, Northern (CA, KY); Hybrid; USD 63,000 - 89,000; Full time

Job summary

Caltech seeks a Research Engineer in Pasadena to build perception and planning software for autonomous uncrewed aircraft. You will develop algorithms, integrate with onboard sensing and embedded computing, calibrate sensors, and validate results in lab and field.

Aircraft carry visual/thermal imaging, inertial navigation, and onboard compute with a ground station link for offboard processing. This role spans from algorithm development to flight and involves close collaboration with graduate

Qualifications

• Bachelor of Science in engineering, computer science, or closely related field, or equivalent degree.
• Demonstrated experience developing computer vision or robotic perception software and running it on physical robot hardware.
• Programming in Python and C++; ROS or ROS 2; Linux.

Responsibilities

• Develop perception and planning algorithms for onboard sensing and autonomous decision-making.
• Characterize and calibrate onboard imaging sensors and relate measurements to ground positions.
• Deploy algorithms to embedded compute on aircraft and integrate with flight stack, sensors, and ground station.
• Conduct flight testing, field campaigns, data collection, and performance assessment.
• Create technical documentation, trade studies, and project reporting.

Skills

Python

C++

ROS/ROS 2

Computer vision

Robotics

Education

Bachelor of Science in engineering or computer science

Master's degree in robotics or related field

Tools

NVIDIA Jetson

CUDA

TensorRT

Docker

Job description

Caltech seeks a Research Engineer in Pasadena to build perception and planning software for autonomous uncrewed aircraft. You will develop algorithms, integrate with onboard sensing and embedded computing, calibrate sensors, and validate results in lab and field.

Aircraft carry visual/thermal imaging, inertial navigation, and onboard compute with a ground station link for offboard processing. This role spans from algorithm development to flight and involves close collaboration with graduate