Autonomy Engineer

Summary

Join EpiSci as an Autonomy Engineer and shape the future of tactical mission autonomy by designing and actualizing architectures and systems across a spectrum of Tactical autonomy applications.

Requirements

• Master’s degree in computer science/related engineering field
• 6+years of hands-on experience developing software for autonomous robotic systems
• Experience in developing software for autonomous robotic systems
• High proficiency in Python programming language
• Strong functional, procedural, data-oriented, and object-oriented programming experience employing clean code principles and good design patterns/principles
• Ability to use data visualization and debugging tools to support autonomous agent development
• Experience developing in Docker and containerized development environments, and using Linux-based operating systems (e.g., RHEL, Ubuntu)
• Experience using git, Visual Studio Code, GitLab and artifact registries such as Artifactory

Responsibilities

• Write software that operates real autonomous aircraft systems including F16 fighter jets, group 1-5 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), as well as simulated models to accomplish tactical military missions
• Implement, leverage and improve state-of-the-art unmanned aerial system (UAS) autonomy algorithms for the following autonomy categories to perform tactical military missions
• Autonomy loops such as: “Sense, Make Sense, Decide, Act (SMDA)”
• ���Observe, Orient, Decide, Act (OODA)” loops
• ���Perceive, Decide, Act’ (PDA)” loops
• Sense: Environment sensing and modeling, computer vision, sensor processing, classification, anomaly detection
• Make Sense: Environment mapping, data interpretation, 3D voxel grids, GeoGrids, WGS84, aerospace coordinate systems and reference frames (northeast down (NED), Geocentri & Geodetic latitudes, Earth-centered-inertial (ECI), earth centered earth fixed (ECEF)), no fly zones, keep-in/keep-out zones
• Sensor fusion and target tracking, etc. Find, fix, track, target (F2T2)
• Decide: State machines, behavior trees, optimization algorithms, constraint solving, classic algorithms (A*, RRT*, DFS, BFS, Branch & Bound, Random Forests), heuristics, optimization, Kalman filters, particle filters, etc
• Artificial intelligence techniques such as deep reinforcement learning, reinforcement learning, machine learning, neural networks, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, generic algorithms, Bayesian networks, fuzzy logic, etc
• Act: Autonomous 2D & 3D UAS trajectory/motion planning, route planning, SLAM. Classical controls systems, optimal control systems, adaptive control systems, model predictive control systems, especially for integration of 3rd party UAS autopilots
• Guidance, navigation, and controls (GNC)
• Build, leverage, and improve robotic autonomy software architectures that can be deployed on real systems to accomplish military missions
• Support live flight test of autonomy software on platforms such as F16s, and F16s, group 1-5 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• Collaborate with 3rd party UAS vehicle vendors on the integration of EpiSci autonomy software onto OEM UAS hardware
• Collaborate with domain experts and prior DoD warfighters (ex. DoD fighter pilots) to build software autonomy solutions for military missions

Preferred Qualifications

• Passion for solving complex problems with little supervision in a fast-moving team
• Ability to balance multiple priorities in a fast-paced, highly collaborative, frequently changing, and sometimes ambiguous environment
• Excellent analytical, communication, and documentation skills with demonstrated ability to collaborate across multiple teams

Benefits

$120,000 - $180,000 a year