Principal Robotic Controls Engineer
Confirmed on the employer's own hiring board on Nov 13, 2026. First seen by Alion on Nov 13, 2026. Clera scores B on the Alion truth index.
About the Role
Own the controls and estimation architecture for a precision laser beam director within a defense technology team. You will take algorithms from modeling and simulation through embedded hardware and field testing, helping deliver accurate tracking against dynamic targets.
What You'll Do
Design the control architecture for coarse gimbals and fine steering mirrors, including bandwidth allocation, multi-rate design, and stage handoffs.
Develop estimators that fuse radar, EO/IR, and inertial data into predicted aimpoints, with latency compensation.
Implement line-of-sight stabilization and jitter rejection using inertial stabilization, accelerometer feedforward, and adaptive filtering.
Build and manage pointing error budgets across jitter, bias, latency, and atmospheric effects, then validate precision against moving targets in the field.
Model plants and identify system dynamics in time and frequency domains, validating models through hardware-in-the-loop testing.
Analyze robustness, stability margins, sensitivity, and performance under disturbances and parameter variation.
Integrate fire-control handoffs, engagement sequencing, dwell maintenance, and safety interlocks with partner engineering teams.
Move algorithms from simulation to embedded hardware, supporting kHz-rate control loops and reviewing controls and sensor integration.
Serve as a technical anchor and mentor through hands-on engineering contributions.
What We're Looking For
10 or more years closing loops on precision pointing, tracking, or stabilization systems, including fielded systems with measured performance.
PhD-level depth in control theory and estimation, or a master's degree with a research-grade record of applying control theory to fielded hardware.
Strong background in robust control, including H-infinity, mu-synthesis, and LQG, and estimation methods such as Kalman variants, IMM, and nonlinear observers.
Hands-on experience with microradian-class pointing systems, such as beam directors, fine steering mirrors, gimbaled sensors, laser communication terminals, telescopes, spacecraft, or comparable precision mechatronics.
Experience with C or C++ control loops on embedded or RTOS platforms, multi-rate and sampled-data design, and real-time hardware-in-the-loop validation.
Proven system identification and plant modeling experience with real structural dynamics.
MATLAB/Simulink, C/C++, Python, RTOS, Kalman filtering, or adaptive control experience is relevant.
Defense or high-energy laser experience, adaptive optics, atmospheric propagation modeling, publications or patents, and ability to obtain a security clearance are additional assets.
Compensation & Benefits
Base salary: $250,000 to $315,000 USD annually. Equity and visa sponsorship details were not provided.
Location
On-site in Los Lunas, New Mexico, United States.