aQuatonomous - Autonomy (Planning and Controls) Lead

Ahoy! Want to sail the seven seas? Interested in renewable energy, autonomous vehicles, and outdoor robotics? Get involved in aQuatonomous: a competitive design team at Queen’s University focused on designing and building an autonomous surface vessel (ASV/robotic boat) for the applied purpose of carrying out ecological and water research in harsh ocean environments.

The 2025-2026 year will be aQuatonomous’ second year of complete operation, with the goal of competing in the finals at the RoboNation RoboBoat competition in March.

aQuatonomous is hiring an Autonomy Lead (Planning and Controls) for the 2025-2026 academic year. This individual will spearhead the integration of navigation algorithms and control systems into the ASV.

🧠 We are looking for someone who:

• Has strong communication skills and time management skills.
• Is ready to take on a leadership role and learn alongside the autonomy sub-team.
• Enjoys collaboratively tackling complex problems and is a patient debugger.
• Has an interest in outdoor robotics and autonomous vehicles.
• Is excited to work in Robot Operating System (ROS) and Gazebo, Linux, and C++/Python.

🌊As the autonomy lead, you will be responsible for:

• Equipping the boat with autonomous navigation capabilities for various RoboBoat tasks.
• Hosting meetings for your sub-team and overseeing projects for members; work closely with other leads.
• Programming behaviour and path planners for the boat.
• Simulating a virtual environment for PID control and fine tuning for competition tasks.
• Helping your team with technical issues.

This application will close on April 6^th, 2025. Interviews will be scheduled via Zoom from April 7^st
through April 11^th.

If ye have any questions, please contact aQuatonomous at engsoc.queensu.ca! 🏴‍☠️🌊