Autonomy Engineer

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Fleet Robotics is a green‑tech, marine robotics company developing an underwater robot to inspect and maintain ship hulls. At Fleet, we are looking for an experienced roboticist to contribute to the development of novel path‑planning algorithms that are robust to the dynamic and unpredictable environments present on ship hulls. Challenges include dealing with harsh and irregular environmental conditions, utilizing limited or varying sensor data, and lack of communication and near‑zero visibility while underwater.

The ideal candidate has demonstrated the ability to develop custom sensor fusion, localization, and mapping algorithms tailored for dealing with the aforementioned challenges. As one of the company’s early employees, this role offers the ability to make significant contributions to a novel and meaningful environmental application working with a small, close‑knitted, and fast‑paced team.

We are tackling a thousand‑year‑old problem: the growth of biofouling on ships. Biofouling is the growth of microorganisms, algae, barnacles, and larger ocean organisms on the ship’s hull. As a ship delivers goods around the world, the growth of these organisms significantly increases the drag forces on the hull and in doing so, significantly increases fuel consumption. Ships are the world’s largest consumers of carbon‑heavy fuels (called bunker fuels).

Conventionally, the commercial shipping industry handles biofouling in two ways: preventatively, by coating the ship’s hull in a highly toxic paint that discourages growth, and reactively, by stopping operations every 6‑months or so to have divers scrape off years of fouling (along with some toxic paint). This is akin to deciding never to brush your teeth because you go to the dentist every five years.

There is a better way.

Our small autonomous robots live on the side of a ship’s hull for years, gently removing the earliest stage of biofouling on a regular basis. This early‑stage biofouling is easy‑to‑remove slime. The technical challenge lies in having a robot that can withstand harsh marine environments, adhere to the ship hull while it is underway, and clean entirely autonomously. By removing slime often and early, we prevent the growth of macrofouling, significantly reduce fuel consumption, and prevent the spread of invasive species from port to port.

Our customers enjoy reduced operating costs, improved environmental compliance, and enhanced monitoring of vessel conditions, all without imposing any extra responsibilities on the crew.

You will significantly contribute to the development, testing, and optimization of custom sensor fusion localization, and state estimation solutions. Our robots live on the side of ship hulls and must be able to accurately maneuver both above and below water in order to effectively fight biofouling. To enable efficient biofouling removal, the robots must use detailed path planning to ensure total ship coverage.

In turn, our path‑planning algorithms depend on accurate pose estimation which comes from specialized localization and sensor fusion implementations specific to our set of sensors and environment. The side of a ship presents unique challenges that require novel localization solutions, including dealing with harsh and irregular environmental conditions, limited visibility, lack of discernible features, and low to no communication while the robot is submerged.

This challenging but rewarding environment creates an opportunity where creative problem‑solving and critical thinking are crucial to success.

• Develop novel localization capabilities for an underwater walking robot with unique sensing capabilities.
• Integrate localization algorithms on physical robot platforms.
• Optimize localization performance by tuning algorithm parameters and sensor noise models.
• Lead testing, evaluation, and analysis efforts, including simulation, in‑lab, and in‑field testing.

• Experience with robotics algorithms, particularly state estimation techniques.
• Understanding of the…