Locomotion & Whole-Body Control Engineer (human)

YOUR MISSION & CHALLENGES

We are growing our legged-robotics capability on NEURA's humanoid (4NE1) and quadruped platforms. This role spans both core layers of the legged control stack: trajectory optimization and MPC for kino-dynamic motion generation, and QP-based instantaneous whole-body control for executing those motions on real hardware at 1 kHz.

The work is focused on contact-rich dynamics, real-time optimization, and reliable execution on physical robots. You will collaborate closely with state estimation, simulation, low-level control, and hardware stakeholders, and with the application teams whose tasks ultimately depend on robust, predictable locomotion and whole-body behaviour.

- Whole-body motion generation and control for floating-base legged platforms — locomotion, balance, contact transitions, and loco-manipulation (walking while manipulating).

- Trajectory optimization and model-predictive control pipelines over robot state, contact schedules, ground reaction forces, centroidal momentum, and joint trajectories — using reduced-order locomotion models such as LIPM, SRBD, and centroidal dynamics.

- QP-based task-space inverse dynamics for executing instantaneous whole-body control from MPC and trajectory-optimization references at 1 kHz on the real robot.

- Whole-body modelling for the platform: floating-base rigid-body dynamics from URDF / MJCF, joint configuration, FK / IK, Jacobians, and mass / Coriolis / gravity computation.

- Constraint formulation across the MPC and QP layers — contact, friction, torque, joint, kinematic, and stability constraints — with task-hierarchy design appropriate to the platform.

- Solver performance work across both layers: warm-starting, numerical conditioning, constraint handling, and real-time reliability at 500 Hz – 1 kHz.

- Deployment, tuning, and debugging of MPC, trajectory optimization, IK, and inverse dynamics pipelines on physical robots — including platform-specific contact-model calibration and validation against real robot data.

- High-performance C++ for real-time execution; Python tooling for analysis, prototyping, and debugging.

WHAT WE CAN LOOK FORWARD TO

- MSc or PhD in robotics, controls, mechanical or electrical engineering, computer science, or a related field.

- 4+ years of hands-on experience developing trajectory optimization, MPC for locomotion, and / or whole-body control on physical robots.

- Strong foundation in floating-base articulated rigid-body dynamics and contact modelling.

- Strong working knowledge of reduced-order locomotion models (LIPM, SRBD, centroidal dynamics, or equivalents) and their use inside MPC.

- Strong foundation in optimal control, constrained numerical optimization, and model-predictive control for legged robots.

- Hands-on experience with whole-body QP / TSID frameworks on real robot data — including QP / DDP solver internals.

- Hands-on experience deploying real-time control / MPC / WBC pipelines at 500 Hz – 1 kHz on hardware.

- Strong C++ for real-time robotics software; Python for analysis, tooling, prototyping, and debugging.

- Practical understanding of how contact dynamics, actuator limits, latency, state-estimation error, solver failure modes, and model mismatch behave on real hardware.

- A collaborative working style: shared design, constructive code review, proactive communication, and reliable coordination across control, estimation, simulation, low-level control, and hardware disciplines. Strong teamwork is essential for this role.

Nice to Have

- Hands-on experience on humanoids, quadrupeds, or other high-DOF legged robots.

- Familiarity with Pinocchio, MuJoCo, Crocoddyl, IPOPT, TSID, OCS2, or similar open-source tools.

- Hierarchical QP, weighted QP, task prioritization, contact force optimization, or operational-space control.

- Contact planning, gait optimization, balance recovery; CPG-based or hybrid CPG / MPC controllers.

- Multi-contact WBC: foot contact, bimanual grasping, or base-arm coordination.

- Contact-consistent dynamics and impact-aware control transitions.

- Experience with torque-controlled robots and high-bandwidth electric actuation.

- Publications at RSS, ICRA, IROS, or CoRL in legged locomotion or whole-body control.