Optical Sensing Intern - Robot Perception

The role

You will design experiments to determine how sensors perform in various real-world conditions. You will work with perception and hardware engineers to influence sensor choices and algorithm requirements.

What you will do

• Design experiments to answer engineering questions regarding sensor settings and performance
• Explain sensor failures using optical physics
• Propose and test solutions for sensor failures
• Build scenes, targets and scenarios to reproduce real-world conditions
• Use sensor SDKs and firmware to tune settings
• Write Python to process images and point clouds
• Present findings and recommendations to engineers

Required qualifications

• Pursuing an MS in Optics, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Computer Vision or Robotics
• Research or lab experience designing experiments
• Strong grasp of optical sensing physics: image formation, noise, dynamic range, time-of-flight and LiDAR principles
• Hands-on with cameras, LiDAR, time-of-flight or other optical sensors in a lab or on a robot
• Comfortable with sensor SDKs, drivers and configuration
• Python for numerical analysis and image or point-cloud processing (NumPy, OpenCV, Open3D or similar)
• Curiosity to dig past it doesn't work to the cause
• Creativity in finding fixes
• Explains results clearly, in writing and with plots, to people outside your specialty

Nice to have

• Camera or sensor calibration
• Thermal or infrared imaging
• Optical modeling or sensor simulation
• ROS 2 and recorded-data tools

About the company

Rhoda AI is building the next generation of generalist intelligent robots. They own the full robotics stack from hardware to foundation world models.