What are the responsibilities and job description for the Internship - LLM-guided Active SLAM for Mobile Robots position at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories?
MERL is seeking interns passionate about robotics to contribute to the development of an Active Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (Active SLAM) framework guided by Large Language Models (LLM). The core objective is to achieve autonomous behavior for mobile robots. The methods will be implemented and evaluated in high performance simulators and (time-permitting) in actual robotic platforms, such as legged and wheeled robots. The expectation at the end of the internship is a publication at a top-tier robotic or computer vision conference and/or journal.
The internship has a flexible start date (Spring/Summer 2025), with a duration of 3-6 months depending on agreed scope and intermediate progress.
Required Specific Experience
- Current/Past Enrollment in a PhD Program in Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, or related field
- Experience with employing and fine-tuning LLM and/or Visual Language Models (VLM) for high-level context-aware planning and navigation
- 2 years experience with 3D computer vision (e.g., point cloud, voxels, camera pose estimation) and mapping, filter-based methods (e.g., EKF), and in at least some of: motion planning algorithms, factor graphs, control, and optimization
- Excellent programming skills in Python and/or C/C , with prior knowledge in ROS2 and high-fidelity simulators such as Gazebo, Isaac Lab, and/or Mujoco
Additional Desired Experience
- Prior experience with implementation and/or development of SLAM algorithms on robotic hardware, including acquisition, processing, and fusion of multimodal sensor data such as proprioceptive and exteroceptive sensors
Mitsubishi Electric Research Labs, Inc. "MERL" provides equal employment opportunities (EEO) to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, MERL complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation and training.
MERL expressly prohibits any form of workplace harassment based on race, color, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, age, genetic information, disability, or veteran status. Improper interference with the ability of MERLs employees to perform their job duties may result in discipline up to and including discharge.
Working at MERL requires full authorization to work in the U.S and access to technology, software and other information that is subject to governmental access control restrictions, due to export controls. Employment is conditioned on continued full authorization to work in the U.S and the availability of government authorization for the release of these items, which might include without limitation, obtaining an export license or other documentation. MERL may delay commencement of employment, rescind an offer of employment, terminate employment, and/or modify job responsibilities, compensation, benefits, and/or access to MERL facilities and information systems, as MERL deems appropriate, to ensure practical compliance with applicable employment law and government access control restrictions.
