Temp Research Engineer - UAV Flight Control & Validation

Worcester Polytech; Worcester (MA); On-site; USD 21,000 - 30,000; Part time

Job summary

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) seeks a Temporary Research Engineer to design, prove out, and fly safety-critical control systems for multirotor aircraft. You will develop control and runtime-assurance methods with real guarantees, then push them onto flight hardware and validate them in the air.

Key responsibilities include implementing production-quality C++ for embedded flight computers, integrating with ROS 2 and MAVLink, and meeting real-time constraints on limited compute.

Qualifications

• MS in a closely related field.
• Strong foundation in nonlinear control and dynamics.
• Demonstrated experience with UAV or multirotor control in research.
• Proficiency in C++ (C++14 or later) and Python, including real hardware.
• Experience taking an algorithm from derivation through simulation to hardware validation.
• Clear technical writing and the ability to explain proofs and bugs.

Responsibilities

• Design and analyze controllers for quadrotors and other multirotors.
• Develop production-quality C++ for real-time execution on embedded flight computers; use Python for analysis.
• Plan and execute flight tests; run simulations and hardware-in-the-loop validation; analyze logs.

Skills

Nonlinear control

Dynamics

Lyapunov analysis

Optimal control

State estimation

Rigid-body dynamics

UAV multirotor control

Education

MS in Aerospace Engineering

MS in Electrical Engineering

MS in Mechanical Engineering

MS in Robotics

MS in Computer Science

Closely related field

Tools

ROS 2

MAVLink

C++14

Python

Job description

Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) seeks a Temporary Research Engineer to design, prove out, and fly safety-critical control systems for multirotor aircraft. You will develop control and runtime-assurance methods with real guarantees, then push them onto flight hardware and validate them in the air.

Key responsibilities include implementing production-quality C++ for embedded flight computers, integrating with ROS 2 and MAVLink, and meeting real-time constraints on limited compute.