Postdoc: Underground Robotics — SLAM, Navigation & Mapping

UT-Battelle; Oak Ridge (TN); On-site; USD 65,000 - 85,000; Full time

Job summary

UT-Battelle at Oak Ridge National Laboratory seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Robotics and Navigation to develop an autonomous underground exploration and mapping platform. You will integrate heterogeneous sensors and onboard computing, advance LiDAR-based SLAM, and deploy algorithms on physical robots in GPS-denied, dim environments.

Collaborating across robotics, surveying, remote sensing, and AI, you will publish in journals and conferences while ensuring safety and ethics.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in robotics or closely related field obtained in the last five years.
• Demonstrated experience developing robotic systems using ROS 2.
• Hands-on experience integrating sensors, actuators, computing hardware, or communications interfaces on a mobile robotic platform.
• Proficiency in Python, modern C++, and Linux-based development environments.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement a modular ROS 2 architecture for onboard sensing, autonomy, mapping, and data logging.
• Develop and integrate ROS 2 drivers and hardware interfaces for LiDAR, IMU, cameras, wheel odometry, and laser scanners.
• Establish calibration, coordinate-frame management, timestamp synchronization, and data acquisition across devices.
• Develop multi-sensor localization and state-estimation methods fusing LiDAR, IMU, camera, and wheel-odometry data.
• Implement LiDAR-based SLAM, pose-graph optimization, loop-closure, and drift-correction for long trajectories.
• Create autonomous navigation: path planning, obstacle avoidance, frontier exploration, and localization-aware planning.
• Develop high-accuracy point cloud registration and mapping workflows; plan experiments on physical robots.

Skills

ROS 2

Sensor integration

Python

C++

Linux

Education

Ph.D. in robotics or related field

Tools

Open3D

Job description

UT-Battelle at Oak Ridge National Laboratory seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Robotics and Navigation to develop an autonomous underground exploration and mapping platform. You will integrate heterogeneous sensors and onboard computing, advance LiDAR-based SLAM, and deploy algorithms on physical robots in GPS-denied, dim environments.

Collaborating across robotics, surveying, remote sensing, and AI, you will publish in journals and conferences while ensuring safety and ethics.