Co-Op, Robot Perception & State Estimation (AI Robotics)

Location: Cambridge, MA, USA; Alewife, Cambridge, MA

Company

Builds AI Science Factories that combine advanced AI models with proprietary scientific instruments to autonomously execute the scientific method across medicine, materials, and energy.

What you will do

• Fuse multi-sensor data to improve mobile-base state estimation.
• Build camera-based AprilTag and laboratory instrument detection and localization for robot manipulation and navigation.
• Develop robot capabilities in ROS 2 Jazzy.
• Expand simulation-based testing and CI pipelines to validate changes before hardware deployment.
• Evaluate estimation and perception performance on real robot data, debug physical robot behavior, and contribute fixes to the codebase.
• Ship production-quality software and document algorithms, testing approaches, and integration patterns while collaborating with robotics engineers, AI researchers, and software engineers.

Requirements

• In-progress Master’s degree preferred or strong senior-year Bachelor’s degree in Robotics, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, or a related field, with a controls or estimation focus.
• Availability for the full spring co-op term.
• Proficiency in Python and/or C++ with coursework or project experience writing well-tested code.
• Familiarity with state estimation and sensor fusion, such as Kalman filtering.
• Strong foundation in linear algebra and probability.
• Comfort with Git and Linux development environments.
• Strong communication skills and ability to work effectively across a multidisciplinary team.

Nice to have

• Experience with ROS 2, preferably Jazzy, or another robotics framework.
• Hands-on experience with camera systems and computer vision, including OpenCV, AprilTags, or camera calibration.
• Experience with simulation-based testing and CI, including Gazebo or GitHub Actions.
• Experience integrating software with sensors, actuators, or other physical systems.
• Coursework or projects in localization, SLAM, or robot control.

Culture & Benefits

• Work alongside robotics engineers, AI researchers, and software engineers with day-to-day support from the Production Robotics team.
• Contribute to software running in production laboratory environments and supporting scientific experiments.
• Values include truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity.
• Equal employment opportunity is provided regardless of protected characteristics.