Postdoctoral Fellow: Autonomous Underground Robotics & SLAM

Oak Ridge National Laboratory; Oak Ridge (TN); On-site; USD 60,000 - 90,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

On-site fitness facilities

401(k) retirement plan

Dental plan

Vision plan

Flexible working hours

Job summary

Oak Ridge National Laboratory seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Robotics and Navigation to advance autonomous underground exploration and mapping. The role focuses on integrating heterogeneous sensors and developing LiDAR-based SLAM, autonomous navigation, and trajectory planning for a mobile robot in GPS-denied environments.

You will collaborate with experts in robotics, surveying, remote sensing, and AI, deploy algorithms on real robots, and contribute to publications and technical

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in robotics, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, aerospace engineering, or closely related field obtained in the last five years.

Responsibilities

• Design and implement a modular ROS 2 software architecture for onboard sensing, autonomy, mapping, data logging, launch management, and configuration management.
• Develop and integrate ROS 2 drivers and hardware interfaces for LiDAR, IMU, cameras, wheel odometry, and laser scanners.
• Develop robust procedures for sensor calibration, coordinate-frame management, timestamp synchronization, and data acquisition across heterogeneous devices.
• Develop and evaluate multi-sensor localization and state-estimation methods that fuse LiDAR, IMU, camera, and wheel-odometry data in GPS-denied environments.
• Implement LiDAR-based or LiDAR-inertial SLAM, graph optimization, loop-closure, and drift-correction for long trajectories.
• Develop autonomous navigation capabilities, including path planning, obstacle avoidance, and frontier exploration.
• Develop high accuracy point cloud registration and mapping workflows.
• Plan and conduct experiments on physical robotic systems.
• Publish results in peer-reviewed venues and communicate findings through reports and presentations.
• Deliver ORNL's mission by upholding our core values of Impact, Integrity, Teamwork, Safety, and Service.

Skills

ROS 2

Sensor integration

Python

C++

Linux

SLAM

Autonomous navigation

Trajectory planning

Education

Ph.D. in robotics or related field

Tools

ROS 2 drivers

Open3D

CUDA (optional)

Job description

Oak Ridge National Laboratory seeks a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Robotics and Navigation to advance autonomous underground exploration and mapping. The role focuses on integrating heterogeneous sensors and developing LiDAR-based SLAM, autonomous navigation, and trajectory planning for a mobile robot in GPS-denied environments.

You will collaborate with experts in robotics, surveying, remote sensing, and AI, deploy algorithms on real robots, and contribute to publications and technical