Co-Op, Robot Perception & State Estimation

About the Role

As a Co-Op on the Production Robotics team at Lila Sciences, you will help build the algorithms and software that enable robots to understand their position and surroundings within AI Science Factories (AISFs) to reliably run scientific workflows. The team focuses on state estimation, perception, and testing infrastructure for general-purpose robotic skills. Your work will involve estimation, computer vision, and robotics software, improving mobile base position and motion estimation, developing camera-based detection and localization of AprilTags and lab instruments, and strengthening simulation-based testing and CI for hardware validation. You can expect to write production-quality software, apply mathematical concepts to real sensor data, and debug real-world behavior on physical robots. You will collaborate with robotics engineers, AI researchers, and software engineers, with daily support from the Production Robotics team. The outcome is software that operates in production lab environments and accelerates Lila's experimental capabilities.

Key Responsibilities

• Fuse multi-sensor data to enhance mobile base state estimation.
• Develop camera-based AprilTag and instrument detection and localization for robot manipulation and navigation.
• Create new robot capabilities in ROS 2 (Jazzy).
• Expand simulation-based tests and CI pipelines to validate changes before hardware deployment.
• Evaluate estimation and perception performance using real robot data and contribute code fixes.
• Ship production code in collaboration with robotics, software, and AI engineers.
• Document algorithms, testing strategies, and integration patterns.

Requirements & Tech Stack

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

Bonus Points

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

About LILA

Lila Sciences is developing Scientific Superintelligence™ to address significant global challenges by building AI systems capable of independent learning. The company integrates advanced AI models with proprietary AI Science Factory™ instruments to create an operating system for science that autonomously executes the scientific method, accelerating discovery across medicine, materials, and energy. Lila operates with startup velocity, guided by values of truth, trust, curiosity, grit, and velocity.