AUTONOMY ENGINEER – CONNECTIVITY AND DATA ACQUISITION

Key Skills

Antenna Designs/Testing, AI Robotic systems, CAN

Job Description

Your Work Shapes the World

Whether it be groundbreaking products, best in class solutions or creating a lifelong career, you can do the work that matters at Caterpillar. With a 95-year legacy of quality and innovation and 150 locations in countries around the world, your impact spans the globe.

When you join Caterpillar, you are joining a team of makers, innovators and doers. We are the people who roll up our sleeves and do the work to build a better world. We don’t just talk about progress and innovation. We make it happen. And we are proud of that, because it helps our customers build and power the world we live in – the roads, hospitals, homes and infrastructure. Without a dedicated workforce Caterpillar could not effectively meet our customer’s needs. Join us.

Description

In the early 1900's Benjamin Holt replaced the wheels on a steam tractor with wooden tracks bolted to chains in order to allow the tractor to work in more rugged conditions. Watching nearby, a bystander remarked that the machine crawled along much like a caterpillar, and thus Caterpillar's history began. In roughly 90 years, Caterpillar has transformed the world as a pioneer in the mining, construction, and energy application spaces, leading in development and innovation of disruptive technology. Caterpillar has grown into a world class manufacturer with over $53 billion in sales and revenue in 2019.

Caterpillar is the industry leader in heavy duty industrial autonomous earthmoving solutions and looking to grow on our journey as we continue to bring advanced solutions to meet our customer’s demanding needs. Tired of effortlessly solving your 17x17x17 Rubik's cube? Millennium Prize Problems a little too easy? Our electro-hydraulic machine automation solutions stretch the boundaries of advanced engineering domains and incorporate some of the highest levels of functionally safe electrical architectures, ensuring the industry best level of quality and reliability for our customers while also maximizing your engineering prowess. Our newly established Cat Robotics team is focused on evolving the state of the art and bringing emerging automation & autonomy technology into the harsh production environment found on typical mining and construction jobsites. You will be joining an elite team with a startup feel, while also having the benefit of a vast network of experienced resources at your fingertips.

The Automation Engineer position develops, integrates and/or troubleshoots autonomy software systems used for autonomous machines. This may include complex autonomy onboard system design work, subsystem testing or system integration. It requires specific knowledge of machine systems or automation technologies such as Path Planning, Perception and Positioning. The position uses technical automation knowledge that often must be combined with application/software development skills to develop high quality automation software. This position will translate complex program or subsystem requirements into actionable development efforts. The incumbent will evaluate internal and external automation algorithms to decide which are most appropriate and develop algorithms and code quality software.

To develop the systems effectively, this position must work closely with Component Hardware team members to select or understand the autonomy hardware (ECMs, sensors, etc.) that will be used. A strong knowledge of complex, existing external automation solutions and algorithms is necessary to help determine appropriateness, and if new algorithms are needed. Knowledge of existing internal automation applications and libraries is important to drive consistency. Much development work may be related to existing applications, therefore a strong ability to read and understand existing software is essential to developing updates and improvements. Both new application development and modifications to existing code bases will be done, which requires significant software development skills.

Job Duties

• Define and manage system design for new autonomous vehicle systems
• Participate in research and proof of concept activities for new technologies
• Coordination with component, systems and platform teams and deliver data collection and connectivity solutions
• Electrical interfacing between systems (i.e. sensor integration, power systems, harnessing, etc)
• Communications hardware development (antenna hardware, GPS performance, etc)

Basic Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, or PhD in an accredited Robotics, Electrical or Computer engineering or Computer Science degree
• 2+ years relevant work experience
• Knowledge in practical systems engineering
• Strong electrical fundamentals

Top Candidates will also have

• Built a mobile robot from scratch
• Experience in aviation, automotive, or robotics desired
• Familiarity with CAN and Ethernet communication protocols
• Requirements management and development experience
• Has created complex systems from the ground up
• Comfortable working on the Linux command line
• Experience deploying firmware/software to a large system
• Experience writing high-level software for interfacing purposes
• Strong intuition for designing digital and analog circuits
• Capable of self-managing and working within a multi-disciplinary group
• Exceptional organization and communications skills (both written and oral)

Additional Information

• The location for this position is Pittsburgh PA or Peoria Il
• Domestic Relocation assistance is available for this position
• Sponsorship is available for this position
• This position may require 15% travel

Employee benefit details

• Our goal at Caterpillar is for you to have a rewarding career. Our teams are critical to the success of our customers who build a better world.
• Here you earn more than just a salary because we value your performance. We offer a total rewards package that provides benefits on day one (medical, dental, vision, RX, and 401K) along with the potential of an annual bonus.
• Additional benefits include paid vacation days and paid holidays (prorated based upon hire date).